


I Carry It In Mine

by hilarychuff



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Rewrite, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, R Plus L Equals J, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:55:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilarychuff/pseuds/hilarychuff
Summary: It’s a surprise when Jon’s mark comes in. It is even more of a surprise that the name on his skin belongs to his sister.
Relationships: Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark (per canon), Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Jon Snow & Bran Stark, Jon Snow & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte (per canon), Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark (per canon), Ramsay Bolton/Sansa Stark (per show canon), Sansa Stark & Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark/Willas Tyrell (mentioned), Theon Greyjoy & Sansa Stark, Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark (per canon)
Comments: 278
Kudos: 553





	1. Jon I

It’s a surprise when Jon’s mark comes in. Old Nan had said that when the Children of the Forest ruled the land, the old gods gave everyone a soulmate, but these days they’re rare. When he wakes one day in his tenth year, he doesn’t expect to find a name over his heart. Robb has been ten for months and hasn’t had a name appear, and Theon was still unmarked by his eleventh name day. The both of them are to be lords one day, the leaders of two of the great houses, and he is no one, just some bastard. But when the feeling of a burning in his chest interrupts his slumber, something deep inside of him knows what it means before he even opens his eyes.

It is even more of a surprise that the name on his skin belongs to his sister. Platonic soulmates aren’t unheard of, of course, and he would happily dedicate the rest of his life to ruffling Arya’s hair, teaching her to spar, serving her once she’s old enough to run her own keep — but Sansa? Jon loves all of his siblings, and he knows Sansa loves him, too, but he also knows what she envisions for her future: Falling in love with a handsome knight or lord, being the lady of a great castle, bringing honor to her husband’s family and her own. Whether or not he would be happy by her side is irrelevant, though he is caught off-guard by the realization that he could be. Wherever she ends up, she will not wish to bring her baseborn brother along with her, disrespecting her new family’s home.

He does not tell anyone, keeping both the name a secret and the fact that he has a name at all. When Robb and Theon strip down to swim in the hot springs, he rolls up his pants and wades up to his knees, but he keeps his tunic covering his chest. He refuses help bathing from the servants on the rare occasions it’s offered. He didn’t need their aid before and he certainly doesn’t now. Once they’ve drawn the water for him, he dismisses them from the room, disrobing only after he’s locked his chamber doors behind them. He resolves to keep his mark to himself.

\--

When he wakes to the sound of Sansa screaming just a few mornings before her own eleventh name day, he finds himself running to her room, hopeful and heartsick in equal measures. If she has his name — if there’s somewhere in the world he belongs, someone in the world he truly belongs to — but he doesn’t let himself think that far ahead. If she has his name, and she screamed at the sight of it, he may as well head for the Wall now, become a black brother in the Night’s Watch and leave her to forget any promise the old gods made them.

Sansa keeps her mother’s faith, he knows. Robb finds her lighting candles at the Maiden’s altar in the sept near every week, and they say the Seven look kindly on those who pray to find love on their own terms. Even the old gods offer a choice. If she bears his name and she does not want him, she will be able to leave him behind.

But when he finally reaches the door to his sister’s chambers, he is not alone. His father and Lady Stark are already there, and so are two of his siblings. Robb looks pale, disquieted as their father solemnly dismisses all of the serving girls from the room and Lady Catelyn wraps her arms around her eldest daughter, whispering soothing things as Sansa sobs incomprehensible words. Arya’s hair is a mess atop her head, and she rubs at one, sleepy eye with her fist, but can’t help peering curiously into the room as she asks what happened. Ned doesn’t answer, only commands them all to return to their own quarters. Jon’s heart quickens when his father’s gaze lands on him, and he swears it lingers, but Ned Stark’s mouth is pressed in a firm line and he speaks no more. Jon waits in his room for his father to confront him. Lord Stark never comes.

Sansa spends the next week in bed, refusing to leave her chambers for lessons with her septa. He pictures his name on her a thousand times, Jon Stark written over her heart. The old gods cared not whether you were a bastard, Old Nan had told them. They were not concerned with honor or false vows made in the light of the seven. They could peer into your soul, and they knew who you truly were. They could proclaim him a Stark, tie him to his father’s family forever. He would not use such a name to usurp his brother’s birthright, but to be named a Stark by the old gods — It wouldn’t even matter if she did not want him if the old gods saw fit to smile on him in this way.

But when Sansa finally emerges from her room, a perfect lady once again but more solemn than before, Robb whispers to him that her mark belongs to a Targaryen, undoubtedly one long dead or missing, and a bastard besides. The family had been rooted out of Westeros, torn from the throne. There are whispers of the true-born Targaryens, the only two left in the world, who live across the Narrow Sea, but neither bears the name on Sansa’s skin. Either way, he knows now it is not him, and he supposes he had always known that if he were lucky enough to be given a mark, it would be unrequited. The old gods may offer gifts, but they demand their tolls in turn.

Still, he can’t help but wonder what such a mark means for his sister. After gathering up all of the courage he can muster, he knocks on the door of his lord father’s solar one day, determined to ask what will happen to Sansa. Ned’s stormy eyes are dark, and Jon feels laid bare before him, flayed clean to the bone. Surely his father can see through his jerkin to the name printed on his chest, surely his father knows. But Ned says nothing of Jon’s mark, only tells him that it is sorrowful that Sansa will never be able to be with the soul the old gods deemed the perfect match for hers. Sorrowful indeed, but she will still live, even still go on to lead a happy life. Ned did not have a mark of his own, but he had found love with his lady wife who bore his brother’s name. Love could be built, he promised. It did not need to be given by the gods.

\--

When the king and his court come north several moons later, he supposes Sansa has found that happiness in the prince. Joffrey is a golden boy, already tall for his age and beautiful. He will give her a kingdom, a throne, a crown. Sansa could not ask for more, but Jon hates him nonetheless. When the betrothal becomes official, he vows to go south with his father, sisters, and Bran. If his siblings — half-siblings, he corrects himself — must go live in the den of lions that is King’s Landing with the Lannisters, he will shield them in whatever way he can. Perhaps he will even become a knight, a member of the Kingsguard one day. He is not eager to lay down his life for King Robert, a man who looks nothing like the powerful warrior from his father’s stories, nor for Prince Joffrey, a pretty boy who had spurned Robb in the training yard. But the future queen, Queen Sansa, he would gladly die to protect.

But when he tries to tell his father, tries to beg leave to join the party traveling south, the answer in Ned Stark’s eyes is enough. He knows he has his father’s love. The honorable Lord Stark would not bring a bastard into his wife’s home for nothing. But his father knows who he is, and Jon does too. To invite his baseborn son into the king’s court would be a great insult to the royal family.

 _To the Wall then_ , Jon suggests. If he does not have a place by his father’s side, he will not have a place in Winterfell without him. If it is time for Robb to grow up and begin to rule the castle in his own right, it is time for Jon to find where he belongs, too. To live by Uncle Benjen’s side, to become a ranger beyond the Wall, is the best consolation he can think of. The Night's Watch is a noble band of brothers much like the Kingsguard, only they are sworn to protect the whole realm, not just one family. At first his father denies him, but after Bran’s fall, by the time the king’s carriage is all packed and ready to travel south, Lord Stark is too tired to continue fighting. Jon will go to the Wall and bring his wolf with him. He and Ghost will spend the rest of their days defending the Seven Kingdoms. It is not a life with his soulmate, with any of his siblings, but it is honorable in its own way, Jon promises himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!!! So I mean it when I say this is gonna be a slow burn which is why I tagged for friendship first. There will also be other ships along the way and I will update the tags as I go to reflect that!!! But ultimately this is a Jon/Sansa thing as I consider how the story would change with this lil quirk of the premise. Some parts are going to be like super overviews no details. And then some parts are gonna be more actual character scenes, especially once we get to the parts where the book canon is left behind. 
> 
> For the most part, I am sticking to canon as it was written, so events will look pretty much the same but with different thoughts/feelings/motivations. Once we get to the end of the books, however, I am incorporating plots from the show because I am not smart enough to put the pieces together of where GRRM is going with everything/not willing to put in the work to make up all of my own answers that make sense. That means that things like Sansa's marriage to Ramsay will still happen, enough tho I hate it, and I'll just try and fill in the gaps to make it less dumb to me. 
> 
> However, I will err towards book canon when I can and might bring some of those plots back in, and also at a certain point I'll start to get creative with more of my own ideas. As for ages, I guess lean towards the show, but honestly I don't get too specific other than with the occasional side character so it can be read however you want. OK!!!!! That's all!!! Thanks love you!!!!


	2. Sansa I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Winterfell, so many moons ago, she had been terrified when she first saw her mark. She was sure that having a Targaryen for a soulmate meant nothing good, and even further still that it was treason against the crown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for in-canon violence, sexual and otherwise.

It’s said the Lannisters always pay their debts, but Sansa finds they take more than they give. She had shown Joffrey and his mother every loyalty she could after her betrothal began. It seemed to make no difference.

After Nymeria attacked the prince on the King’s Road, after Arya bloodied his head and threw his sword in the river, Sansa had known it was up to her to mend the hurt between their families. Tensions were high between the queen’s men and her father’s, and their uninvited stay at Castle Darry had everyone on edge. The lord was ill prepared to host the royal party, and battles from King Robert’s rebellion were not yet long-forgotten. The Darrys had fought beside Prince Rhaegar only a half day’s ride away, would be loyal to his family still if any remained on this side of the Narrow Sea. She needed to do what she could to remind her intended of the love they already shared before he questioned why the gods would pledge Sansa to a dragon, too.

In Winterfell, so many moons ago, she had been terrified when she first saw her mark. She knew what Mad King Aerys had done to her uncle and grandfather, what the crown prince had done to her aunt. She was sure that having a Targaryen for a soulmate meant nothing good, and even further still that it was treason against the crown. Her lady mother had assured her that it wasn’t true, but her father had grimly told her that it didn’t matter. Her soulmate — whoever Jaehaerys Targaryen was — was dead or may as well be.

Lord Eddard Stark had promised to find a better match for her one day, and she thought he had done so when she first heard whispers about an engagement to the prince. King Robert had not found her shameful for her mark. He knew the pain of having her Aunt Lyanna ripped away from him, and he’d delighted in discovering that a Baratheon boy might steal a Stark girl back. Standing in the snow with Joffrey, the prince had pressed a kiss first to one of her cheeks and then the other. He’d told her that their union would rewrite history, heal the realm.

That would be her role going forward. She couldn’t wait for her father’s men to find Arya, couldn’t risk her mannerless little sister being left to make amends and instead making a mess of the whole thing. Arya had already spurned Queen Cersei’s invitation to ride in the wheelhouse, had dared to say that she didn’t even like the queen. Sansa tried to seek out Prince Joffrey and his mother to apologize on her sister’s behalf, to explain that their mother said Arya was just as much wolf as she was girl, but that wolves were brave and loyal creatures — only as soon as she’d gotten close, she’d chanced upon Ser Ilyn Payne. When the silent knight set his unblinking gaze on her, she’d been too frightened to venture any further from the chambers Jeyne’s father had found for them to share.

And then she’d been too late. When Vayon Poole finally brought her before the court, when her father called her forth and everyone turned their eyes to her, she froze. She knew it was wrong to lie, and yet she didn’t dare contradict the crown. With Arya on one side and Joffrey before them, Sansa had done what she could to appease everyone — and they had taken Lady from her for it. She hadn’t chosen between her family and her prince, and the price of that mistake had been the other half of her.

When the choice came again months later, with the threat of a broken engagement heavy over her head, Sansa realized what she must do to set things right. She had known she was being wicked, begging the queen to command her father to let her stay in King’s Landing, but surely she owed her fealty to her betrothed. Septa Mordane always said that when women married, when they joined their husband’s house, they left their own name and family behind. Her lady mother might have been born a Tully, but she was a Stark now. Sansa and Prince Joffrey had yet to exchange vows in a sept, but an engagement made their marriage all but official, did it not?

Only choosing the crown had its own cost. After two days under guard in Maegor’s Holdfast, she learned her father had been arrested, his men slain, and they meant to take her betrothal to Joffrey from her, too. The daughter of a traitor, they named her, and her hand had flown to her heart. _I was meant to heal the realm_ , she’d thought desperately, and begged them let her prove how much she loved the prince. She had written the letters they told her to write and professed her love and obedience to her future husband, her new king ever since the bells rang for Robert Baratheon.

Even so, they had not let her return to her rooms in the Tower of the Hand, had not let her see any of the remaining members of her father’s household, not even Jeyne or Jeyne’s father. Her friend had been sent back north with everyone else she had known after Arya escaped on the galley with their septa, she’d thought stupidly. And then Joffrey took her father’s head, and any illusions of love or fairness or kindness she’d had were cleaved away with it. Finally, she understood. It had not mattered how sweetly she behaved, how convincingly she pleaded for mercy for her father’s crimes, how ardently she swore to love her intended. None of it had any effect on the Lannisters, and they had rewarded every effort with dust and death and tears.

Now, when Joffrey has Ser Meryn fetch her from her chambers, force her to look at her father’s head, and gift her with two new bruises upon her cheeks where her prince had once kissed her, she swears she will repay the lions in kind. Her prayers had not saved her lord father, but the old gods must have given her Jaehaerys Targaryen’s name for a reason. She doesn’t know how or when, but one day she will rise up like a dragon and lay waste to the Lannisters. Whether they die in fire and blood or the icy cool grasp of winter itself, she will avenge her family.

\--

No matter how much they take from her, they cannot take the name from her skin. Despite that, Joffrey delights in telling her on his name day that the man they call the Beggar King is dead. Across the Narrow Sea, Viserys Targaryen, heir to Mad King Aerys and kin to her soulmate, was murdered by the Dothraki he treated with, slain with a molten gold crown.

When she faces punishment for Robb’s victories in battle, her betrothed reminds her that it is not only her Stark blood she must repent for, but her treasonous soulmate as well. He calls her a traitor twice over as Ser Boros rips her gown from her shoulders, the material splitting down the front. She covers herself as best she can, throwing her hands across her chest as tears spill down her face, but her nakedness leaves the name curved over the top of her breast on display until Lord Tyrion finally puts a stop to it, the Hound tossing her his cloak.

The day she flowers, Queen Cersei promises they will make a Lannister of her yet. Joffrey may hate her for how Arya shamed him, for how Robb defeated his armies, for the name she bears on her skin, but Sansa will survive his hate, the queen promises. She will survive the humiliation and the hurt, and she will find love with the lion cubs she bears her lord husband one day. _When I have children_ , Sansa thinks acidly, _they will be only wolves and dragons, and they will tear you and your son to ribbons._

\--

She takes her victories and her vengeance where she dares, no matter how small. Her largest chance yet comes when the Queen of Thorns begs her tell the truth of who Joffrey is. At first, the promise of Lannister ears clamps her mouth shut, but with the Tyrells’ fool making noise and mischief that rings through the hall, she risks enough of a whisper to tell Lady Olenna in a poison voice just what mercy means to their king. When Butterbumps raises his voice in song, she feels her courage rise within her, bubbling and hot beneath her skin. She is made of fire and blood when she hisses the word _monster_.

In exchange for her honesty, Margaery and her grandmother give her hope again. Her mark is surely no secret to them, not after it had been exposed to half the court, but they promise a marriage to Willas, the eldest of three brothers and heir to Highgarden. Once Margaery is on the throne, Lord Mace will arrange the match, a favor sure to be granted by the crown in exchange for the Tyrells’ love and support. When she becomes a good sister to the queen, they will name her traitor no more, and she will be among the roses and under Willas’s protection. The Lannister rule will continue, but she will be safe and free of the capitol for good. She wonders if that will be enough.

Then even that dream is ripped from her. The lions refuse to release her from their grasp, refuse to remove the claws they’ve sunk deep into her flesh. She feels stronger at first, as they dress her in Stark colors for the first time since her father’s death, but a scream nearly wrenches its way into her throat when Cersei presents her with the maiden’s cloak and she understands what they mean to do. She tries to flee when Ser Meryn and Ser Osmund come to escort her to the sept, she refuses to kneel so her lord husband can clasp the Lannister cloak around her throat, and yet she ends up married to Lord Tyrion all the same.

Dispensing with the bedding spares her from being made naked before Joffrey’s court for a second time, but it does not prevent her from being bared to her husband. In their chambers, she removes the dove gray dress with heavy hands, clumsy fingers. Once she is laid out before him on the bed, she longs to cover herself, but just as soon as her fingers curl around the edge of a sheet, her lord husband stops her. He did not want this marriage either, but Lord Tywin had commanded him to do his duty. His hand reaches for her breast, and she waits for it to be done with, but when she opens her eyes he is across the bed and his gaze is on her mark. He does not mention her soulmate, but he has his own mark, she sees, a name curved over his heart and half-hidden by the hair on his chest. He does not touch her again.

\--

 _Fire and blood_ , she had told herself, and she might laugh if she were made of anything other than tears. Joffrey’s purple face still swims before her eyes, streams of red flowing down his neck from where he had tried to tear open his throat. A ghoulish vision of Ser Dontos, her Florian, is eager to take its place as soon as she blinks the nightmarish images away. He had wanted to dress as a knight as he spirited her out of the city, yet one of the crowns on his surcoat had ended up pierced by an arrow. The flames from Lothor Brune’s torch had licked at the arms on his doublet before the rowboat disappeared and became no more than a cloud of smoke in the distance.

 _Fire and blood_ , she thinks with horror this time. She had prayed for the old gods to strike Joffrey down, to steal the breath from his lungs, to take her away from this place and leave no trace of her behind. Her wishes had not been enough to save her family, but these the gods heard and saw fit to grant. They have killed her tormentor, imprisoned her Lannister husband, secreted her away with a man who professed to love her mother, to love her as a father loves his daughter. Has she done this? They have made her part of it either way.

She should feel free. She should feel powerful and strong. She should not feel alone, draped in Lord Baelish’s cloak as she is, under his protection and with the promise of his friendship. Instead, all she feels is small. She is no dragon. She is not even a wolf. Perhaps she is a fish, she thinks to herself, and wonders how far she could swim if she were to leap overboard. She is too much of a coward to try.


	3. Jon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s done his best to put Sansa out of his mind. He can’t think of her held hostage by the Lannisters and do nothing, and yet there is nothing he can do. It is better he not think of her at all.

His father had been his first thought all that time ago when the Wall received word from King’s Landing that the Hand of the King was in chains. _Arya_ , he’d thought next. And then last, bittersweet, _Sansa_. When Maester Aemon spoke to him of love, of men in the Night’s Watch forswearing their claims and leaving their families behind, he could think only of his mark. Every man at the Wall had been someone’s child or sibling or cousin or friend — but he had been meant for more, meant to belong to someone in both skin and spirit. He had turned away from it once when he thought it meant his sister would have a happy life, but now that she needed him he did not know if he was strong enough to do it a second time.

It didn’t help that, in the days after the man revealed his Targaryen heritage, Sansa had haunted Jon’s thoughts more than ever. Would Aemon have recognized the name she wore over her heart if Jon had known it to ask? Would he have been able to guess where a forgotten dragon might have ended up? Jon wanted little more than to speak to the maester about his soulmate’s soulmate, but Aemon had challenged him to choose between love and duty, and he feared any further conversations would betray his choice. In truth, the decision hadn’t been made until a raven arrived with word of his father’s death. And then almost before he’d known it, Jon had been astride a horse, racing to Robb’s side. 

He wanted to avenge his father, fight beside his brother, rescue his baby sister and soulmate, but his black brothers had come upon him before it had been even a few hours. They’d seen his mark during the long nights they’d spent together, they knew what it meant, and they dragged him back to the Wall all the same. In Lord Commander Mormont’s chambers, the Old Bear had reminded him of the stakes, and his burned hand curled into an aching fist over his heart, resting over his sister’s name. He would make no difference in the war to the south, Mormont told him. Here, at the Wall, every man was needed — and his fight would protect his family in its own way. If he wanted to be a hero, this was where he must make his stand.

In the time since, he’s done his best to put Sansa out of his mind. He can’t think of her held hostage by the Lannisters and do nothing, and yet there is nothing he can do. It is better he not think of her at all. But now, beyond the Wall with Ygritte wrapped in his arms and their furs cushioning the ground beneath them as they huddle together in a cave, he’s more aware than ever of the name on his chest. 

They’ve spoken of marks, of the wildlings who have them. Mance and his queen bear each other’s names, but the old gods’ gifts are just as rare here as they are on the other side of the Wall. Ygritte knows he has one, but she’s never seen it before. When they lay together, they are too often bundled under all of their furs and leathers, but now he is naked before her for the first time, and she him. Her fingers drag over his chest, and he can hear the thoughts turning over in her head. He wonders suddenly if she knows any of her letters, if she can read it, and he’s answering the question before she can give it voice. 

_My sister’s name_ , he says. He admits for the first time how he’d thought to be Sansa’s sworn shield one day. He would’ve pledged his life for hers if it didn’t disgrace her. Instead, he’d become a man of the Night’s Watch. By now, Ygritte knows enough to understand. Because he’s a bastard, she guesses. Coyly, she asks if a bastard can be a maid, and soon enough she’s managed to distract him from his ever-whirling mind. Ygritte’s warm mouth, her eager hands chase away every lingering thought he has. There is no innocence left in him by the time they leave the cave, if he’d still had any when they entered. 

\--

He is feverish, dizzy with pain when they tell him Winterfell is no more. His father is dead, his little brothers are dead, his home is in ruins. Robb and his sisters are all that remain to him, and Arya and Sansa are held by the Lannisters. Beyond the Wall, he’d had Ygritte, but even she is beyond his reach now. The world spins around him, and he wonders if life would be easier or more difficult if it were her name curled over his chest. Would he have been able to leave her behind the way he did? If she’d had his name, would it have stopped her from nocking the arrow his brothers pulled from his leg? He has no one, nothing but his brothers in black, and soon his eyes are too heavy to keep open. Grenn pours milk of the poppy down his throat, and he lets his lids slide shut. 

\--

Ygritte is gone. Whether his name is on her or hers is on him makes no difference now, just as it made no difference for Dalla. Belonging to someone did not stop her from dying in the birthing bed as Mance’s battle raged around her. Jon wonders if there is a name beneath Stannis Baratheon’s doublet, and whether it belongs to his wife or his red witch. The self-proclaimed king’s men infesting Castle Black were the ones to tell him how Robb and Lady Catelyn fell at the Red Wedding. Now, Stannis wants to make Jon a Stark and give him Winterfell, no matter his sisters’ claims. Arya is missing, they say, and Sansa is married to the Imp. 

His fingers find his heart, as always. Tyrion Lannister would be a better husband to her than Joffrey could ever have hoped to be, but he knows being wedded to a dwarf is not the future Sansa envisioned when they promised her a crown. She always wanted to go south, and he wonders if Casterly Rock will suffice, or if she and her new husband will find themselves on the King’s Road traveling north. He pictures himself, Lord of Winterfell as Stannis promises, standing on the battlements as Lord Tyrion and Lady Lannister shiver beneath the castle gates. 

Would he deny his sister, his soulmate, her birthright to her face? Would he do battle with her lord husband, a man who had been kind to him all those moons ago when they traveled together to the Wall, if they came to claim her childhood home? Lady Catelyn is surely turning in her watery grave at the mere thought of it. 

He longs for home, had wanted nothing more than to share his father’s name when he was younger, but he will not take them both at Sansa’s expense, no matter how sweet Stannis’s promises may be. He is a man of the Watch besides, sworn before the old gods who he will not forsake, and his place is here with Ghost. Within days, he is not just a man of the Watch, but the Lord Commander of all the castles along the Wall. It must be enough for him. 


	4. Sansa II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Aunt Lysa is dead, she thinks, it is only Lord Tyrion’s escape from the Red Keep that saves her maidenhead. It would matter not if she were a maid if her husband had been executed for kingslaying. But with the Imp free from his chains and far from the crown, Lord Petyr’s plans for her must wait. Then Littlefinger designs a new scheme.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: On-page forced kissing (Littlefinger) and implied rape (Ramsay). Ramsay doesn't appear on-page at all in this chapter.

Petyr Baelish believes himself her protector, but he is just one more man pressing kisses on her she does not want. Back in King’s Landing, Joffrey had so often promised to come to her bed, Lord Tyrion had not allowed her to cover herself on the night of their wedding, Ser Dontos’s wine-stained lips had found hers on many occasions when she was not quick enough to offer her cheek instead. The night they spent in the Fingers, a singer had cornered her where she meant to sleep, put his hands upon her. Her new uncle did much the same inside the walls of her snow castle at the Eyrie, had aimed to do more if her cousin had not stumbled upon them, she is sure. 

Now that Aunt Lysa is dead, she thinks, it is only Lord Tyrion’s escape from the Red Keep that saves her maidenhead. It would matter not if she were a maid if her husband had been executed for kingslaying. But with the Imp free from his chains and far from the crown, Lord Petyr’s plans for her must wait. In exchange for her kisses, Petyr had revealed how he aimed to use the full might of the Knights of the Vale to take Winterfell under the Stark and Arryn banners, but such promises can no longer be kept without proof that her marriage was never consummated. Whether he had wanted her for himself or truly meant to marry her to Sweetrobin’s heir — a man they name the Young Falcon — she won’t soon find out.

Sansa Stark can no sooner request to be freed from her wedding vows than she can step foot in the queen’s court. Cersei has put a price on her head, and the only way to stay hidden from the Lannister spies is to become Lord Baelish’s baseborn daughter. Until Tyrion Lannister’s skull is mounted on a spike in King’s Landing, she must remain Alayne. 

But then, no more than a moon’s turn later, Littlefinger designs a new scheme. The flayed men struggle to hold the north after Lord Roose Bolton betrayed the Young Wolf, and the crown seeks stability after the deaths of King Joffrey and his hand, Tywin Lannister. If a Bolton boy were to wed a daughter of Winterfell, King Tommen and his bannermen would have a stronger claim on the seat, and the other houses would finally kneel to them in truth. 

_I am Alayne, Father,_ she tells him, trembling hands folded tightly in her lap. _Who else would I be? They say Eddard Stark’s daughters are dead, or else Queen Cersei will make them so soon enough._

He has thought of that, of course. His marriage to Lysa Arryn brought the Vale back into the fold, and he has held the land in the name of the crown ever since. He is as loyal to the Lannisters as he’s always been, he promises with a wicked smile. Like the Boltons, the queen is eager to see the northern rebellion extinguished. She has agreed to allow a well-trained pretender to wed the Bolton bastard — a bastard no longer — in Sansa Stark’s name. Arya fled the capitol long ago, but there are few who would contradict the crown’s claims to have held Sansa Stark in the Red Keep’s dungeons, to have discovered her trying to flee on the King’s Road, or to have cleared her of the king’s murder and agreed to send her home. 

It was well known at court that the Imp had never lain with his little wife. With Queen Cersei’s support, they would not even need to ask the High Septon to send one of his septas north to examine the girl and confirm she is still a maid. As soon as Sansa Stark requests an annulment, her marriage will be set aside, and Lord Baelish’s baseborn daughter will begin to climb the ranks. 

_You want me to play at being her,_ Alayne manages, head swimming with the thought. _Sansa Stark is marked,_ she reminds him. _They will know._ But for every objection she offers, he has an answer. He assures her that the Bolton boy is not like his father. Before Roose turned against Robb, they say Ramsay rooted the Ironborn out of Winterfell in the name of the King in the North. He made a prisoner of Theon Greyjoy, the man who killed Brandon and Rickon Stark, and flayed all of the krakens for their crimes.

Besides, he says, once Lady Sansa’s groom has her undressed, it will be too late. The Boltons have no love for the crown, only for power, and they will not let the key to the north out of their clutches purely so that a grieving mother may have her vengeance. Roose Bolton is no fool, and he learned his lesson after the death of his trueborn son. Even if he seeks to further earn the Lannister’s favor by turning over his bastard’s bride, he will not do so until they have an heir and a spare with Stark blood, cementing their legacy and their hold for the next generation. 

_And what will happen when the Boltons have no more need for Sansa Stark,_ Alayne asks, but Littlefinger pulls her into his lap and silences her questions with a hungry press of his lips. Once Sansa Stark has a son, he assures her, tucking a lock of dyed brown hair behind one ear, Alayne will have no more need for the Boltons either. 

\--

She thought she would be stronger in Winterfell, the way she felt surrounded by snow in the Eyrie. She thought she had seen — and survived — the worst of men already. Theon may be Ramsay’s prisoner, but so is she. No matter where she goes, it seems, a castle becomes a cage. 

This is not the Sansa Stark she dreamt of being. She tries to retreat into Alayne, but her husband delights in reminding her who she is, whose name she bears on her skin. He hates to be reminded that he is his father’s baseborn son, but his eyes sparkle when he tells her she was always meant for a bastard. 

Petyr had promised her she would be safe until she delivered the Boltons an heir. Those first few nights Ramsay came to her bed, she wondered if Littlefinger knew he was lying. Now, she thinks perhaps instead of safe he simply meant alive. Perhaps instead of alive he simply meant not dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all you'll see of the inside of Sansa's marriage. Don't worry, we won't get anymore graphic or explicit than that. She might think back about it in future chapters as part of her history, but it won't get specific. OK bye love you.


	5. Jon III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roose Bolton’s son sent word to the Wall that he was to wed Sansa Stark, and Jon’s heart had stuttered in his chest. They said she was gone, disappeared after her part in King Joffrey’s death — he had not imagined to ever see her back north again.

A girl in grey on a dying horse, the Red Woman had told him. A girl in grey on a dying horse fleeing a marriage, and his mind had gone instantly to the letter from Ramsay Snow, who named himself Bolton and Lord of the Hornwood. Roose Bolton’s son sent word to the Wall that he was to wed Sansa Stark, and Jon’s heart had stuttered in his chest. They said she was gone, disappeared after her part in King Joffrey’s death — he had not imagined to ever see her back north again. 

He was not warmed by the thought of having her so close. Tyrion, he’s sure, would’ve been kind to her, a good man and a good husband, but the Bolton bastard is another creature entirely. He had found a way to live with himself at the Wall, powerless to help his family. He could not live with this. He’d heard tales of what the Lord of the Hornwood did to the Lady of the Hornwood, how he forced her into marriage, locked her in a tower, left her to starve. They said she ate her own fingers in the end. It was all too easy to picture Sansa weeping in a tower of her own, having fled the Lannisters only to find herself a prisoner of the Boltons. 

But men of the Night’s Watch had no kin except their brothers in black. He had tried to run to Sansa’s rescue once, and Pyp, Grenn, and the others had ridden after him and dragged him back to the Wall. He was no more than a steward then, and he has since been named Lord Commander, had already once refused Stannis’s offer to release him from his oaths. The king thought he had chosen his honor and his gods over his home. He had chosen those, yes, but his soulmate’s birthright, too. Now it is her life that he must choose. But skilled with a sword as he was, there was no army to join this time, only him. To try and take Winterfell would mean his death. If he tried to raise any men to join him, it would only usher in his death all the sooner. 

Should anyone find him before he made it to Winterfell, there would not be a second second chance — there would only be a noose. The Watch was already in enough turmoil over the fact that the free folk had moved to the other side of the Wall, some of them sworn to fight alongside the brothers they had once fought against. His men could live with his decision to accept the wildlings’ vows, but he could not push them any further. He could not commit an act that would have condemned another of his brothers to die by his own sword. He had unsheathed Longclaw and introduced the blade to Lord Slynt’s neck for less. Doing this would see him thrown in an ice cell at best, and there would be nothing he could do to help anyone from there. 

Even if he did allow himself to dream that he could make it to the seat of the North, that he would not be discovered and delivered to one of the castles for execution along the way, he could not hope to steal away his sister from a keep full of loyal men, not when the Bolton bastard would be well within his rights to take Jon’s head as a deserter. Even if he did somehow manage it — where would they go? How would they get there? They had no other family left to run to. They would have to risk that one of Eddard Stark’s loyal bannermen would dare openly defy the Boltons. Any who had loved his father would be duty bound to put Jon to the sword, but if he could ensure Sansa’s safety first, if they would promise her refuge, it would be worth it. 

It had been the Red Woman who convinced him to abandon that plan. She had said he didn’t need to forfeit his life if he truly wished to save Sansa. If the witch was to be believed, there was another way. She had not burned Mance Rayder as it seemed, had used her magic to swap the man they called king for another of the free folk, and she would offer the wildling in service to Jon. The leader of the crows could not fly south to save his sister, she said, but if he gave Mance the aid he asked for, the job would be done. 

Once Sansa had been safely stolen away to the Wall, Jon would be able to keep her from the Bolton’s clutches. She could join forces with Stannis, retake her home in her own right. The king had called her Lady Lannister, but if she were set to marry again that meant her husband was dead or else King Tommen had found some other way to free her from her vows. If she bent the knee, Stannis would make use of her. Even if she didn’t, Jon could find some place for her at the Wall, in Mole’s Town, with the wildlings, some way for her to build a home of her own. He could have the life protecting her he’d dreamt of so many years ago, and he would not need to die to do it. He was not eager to be in the Red Woman’s debt, but it was a shrewd solution to his problem, and he had been just desperate enough to seize it. 

Stannis had long since ridden south, and yet he too had sent a raven promising to spare Sansa’s life if he won his battle against the Boltons. He had written that he would save Jon’s sister if he could, though he meant to promise her to one of his own men when he captured Winterfell. _Let Mance find her first_ , he’d prayed, but so long as she kept her life and all of her fingers he would consider it a gift. 

In the moons since, it seems his mind has returned to the red witch’s words a thousand times. _A girl in grey on a dying horse_ , he’d whispered to himself, waiting for the day the former King-beyond-the-Wall returned with his soulmate in tow, safe from the monster they meant to make her husband. He visits the heart tree beyond the Wall, even stares into the flames of his hearth as if they will offer some answers. Old gods or red gods, it makes no difference. It seems they all laugh at his prayers.

It is Alys Karstark who rides up to Castle Black, her mount nothing more than a skeleton beneath her and her once-white woolen cloak colored with soot and ash. A girl in grey on a dying horse, and it is not the girl whose name he bears over his heart. 

\--

He has done his best to build up the strength of the Watch, to forge his focus on the true war to come, but thoughts of Sansa stay with him long after the Red Woman’s false prophecy comes to pass. Alys had brought with her news of her traitorous uncles, Arnold and Cregan both, but the man they called the Onion Knight had not made it back to the Wall in time to turn around and carry word to his king. It seemed Jon had no sooner offered him the use of the Watch’s ravens than Melisandre’s own return had told them all they needed to know of Stannis’s fall. The witch had gone south with her king, but she had traveled back north without him. His sister’s life is in Mance’s hands, and he can only pray that will be enough. 

Then a letter sealed with pink wax arrives. Calling himself Ramsay Bolton, the author confirms the worst fears of the king’s hand and his witch. Of the wildlings Jon sent to Winterfell, the self-styled trueborn Lord of Winterfell tells of an even darker fate. Mance has been captured, the Bolton bastard writes, his six spearwives flayed. He threatens to cut Jon’s heart out, but these are not the words that stick with him. Where others read only grief, he spies a sparkle of hope. 

The Lord of Winterfell wants his bride back. The Lord of Winterfell’s bride has escaped, for all that Mance and the spearwives had not managed to do so with her. It is a second chance. 

This time, he will not wait to be told what the Red Woman sees in her flames, will not wait to hear the lies she gives him and false aid she offers. She was wrong about the girl in grey, and he can not risk her being wrong again. This, he will handle himself, and he tells his men as much. The Bolton bastard has threatened the Watch, threatened its Lord Commander, he says, and Jon means to make the man regret it. He will not ask them to join him, nor will he command it of the free folk fighters in Mole’s Town, but if his men should choose to fight beside him, he will not turn away their swords and their loyalty, not for such an important cause. 

It is an excuse, but one he means to make use of all the same. He will take whatever help he can get, and yet if he must go alone, so be it. He may not be able to take a castle as an army of one, but if he is fast enough he should not need to. He will ride all through the night in search of his lost sister, his soulmate. He must find her before Ramsay Snow does, or else strike down the man himself. 

He imagines killing the bastard in a hundred different ways, pictures each one in his mind. He sees himself taking Snow’s head, giving him to the Red Woman’s fires, squeezing the breath from him as his face turns pink then red then purple, tasting the blood in his own mouth as Ghost tears Snow’s throat from his neck. But he does not see the daggers, not until the first one slices at his skin, the second landing in his belly, the third in his back. For the watch, they say, and he doesn’t understand. His mind whirs but will not work as fast as his body as he tries to fight them off. For the watch. His hands slow, blood leaking out of him, and he falls. For the watch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is later than usual on a Monday!!! I did some last minute tweaking to marry the book canon to the show canon and I am optimistic that it makes sense and I honestly don't want to hear it if it doesn't! Also, I know that we are still just rehashing a lot of existing canon right now and I super appreciate your patience. Just two more chapters until things start to diverge. If you want to bookmark this fic and come back to it when the new chapters are actually new material, I totally understand. If you don't want to wait it out, I get it! But I promise changes are coming and this is not just going to be strictly insight into what people are thinking as you see what you've already seen. But TBH it probs will be a lot of that, so whatever. I'm doing my best!!!! OK, bye, love you.


	6. Sansa III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the distant sound of clashing swords ringing through the air, she was determined not to spend a second battle holed up in a castle, waiting to see if Stannis Baratheon would beat a bastard, waiting to discover if she would stay one man’s hostage or become another’s.

Death is coming for her, she is sure of it. She can already feel winter’s chill seeping into her marrow as she and Theon stumble through the trees, and she does not fear it. Neither does she wish it, but if that is the gods’ will, so be it. If death is the alternative to life with Ramsay, she welcomes its kiss. 

In truth, she has been ready for it since the moment she decided to escape, certain it would be a better fate than facing her husband’s ire if she were caught. The Boltons need her alive, but they do not need her in one piece, and she has been witness to enough demonstrations of Ramsay’s cruelty and creativity to know there is much he can still do to her. One has to look no further than Theon’s hands for the proof. She had noted them the second she saw him, but Littlefinger had told her the north would not look kindly upon any abuse of Eddard Stark’s daughter. He told her many things that proved false, but she will never know if he had simply left her with a comforting lie. Hidden away in her locked quarters as she was, the north could not look upon her at all. Even Joffrey had not kept her under constant guard.

But of course it was not entirely constant. Ramsay seemed ever eager to lure her into a trap, to find some excuse to punish her — Theon had warned her as much on the nights he begged her to be Sansa instead of Alayne, begged her to give her husband the wife he desired. Alayne was bastard born and bastard brave. It would have been easier to be Alayne, a girl playing a part. Alayne had said no words before a heart tree. But Sansa had learned in King’s Landing to shield herself behind pretty words, learned how to please her captors with courtesy. It was Sansa who knew best how to play Ramsay’s slippery games. 

The games were over now. When her husband rode out to meet King Stannis’s forces in the field, a fit of madness seized her, and she knew she would not get another chance. The skirmish was no scheme, and she could not wait. If Ramsay himself came after her, the timing would at least leave him several hours behind, if not days, and, furthermore, with no clue of the direction she meant to run. She herself had not known, only that she would not find the courage again if her husband returned to the keep. 

With the distant sound of clashing swords ringing through the air, she was determined not to spend a second battle holed up in a castle, waiting to see if Stannis Baratheon would beat a bastard, waiting to discover if she would stay one man’s hostage or become another’s. And yet there would be no sneaking past her guards, no charming them into allowing her to pray in the godswood like she might have in King’s Landing. The only way out was the window. 

She did not mean to throw herself from the tower the way she had imagined doing in the Red Keep so many years ago, but nor was she ignorant of the risks. Bran had known how to climb every stone in the stronghold, and Bran fell. If Theon is to be believed, her nimble little brother may not be dead, and yet she had felt the ghost of him in Winterfell all the same. He would show her where to grasp, where to place her feet, she was sure of it. When the door swung open, she had been halfway out the window already. 

Her father’s former ward and the washerwomen had given her another path, had traded her clothes with one of theirs, had spirited her down the corridors as one stayed behind to play at being her. They spoke of her half-brother, of Jon Snow, and the breath had caught in her throat at the idea of seeing him again. She had thought of her baseborn brother so often in the Vale, where Littlefinger had made a bastard out of her, too. To learn that he had thought of her — 

For years in King’s Landing, she had wished for some hero to come take her away. She had thought it would be Robb, but Robb had died at the Twins with their mother. When her Florian finally appeared, when he sold her to Petyr Baelish and Petyr Baelish sold her to the Boltons, she learned her lesson about imagining some rescue. No rescue would ever come. No one would save her but herself. But the women said Jon sent them, and they promised to take her to him, to the Wall. 

She followed their every instruction, but the washerwomen died fighting her husband’s men, and Theon was the only one left beside her when they made it to the battlements. She had grabbed his hand and held on, and she had scarce let go of it since. 

She does not want to die after making it as far as she has, but nor will she be so ungrateful as to turn up her nose at the gifts she has been given. To make it to Jon, to find some family again, someone safe, is too sweet a dream to ever be made real. It is asking for too much. As long as Ramsay’s men do not carry her back to her husband, she will consider herself the victor and meet her fate with a smile on her lips. She is not keen to be caught by the Bolton dogs, to feel their teeth ripping the flesh from her bones, but as she splashes through another frozen stream with Theon’s hand still clutched in hers, she thinks the cold would not be so bad a way to go. It burns, at first, but soon her fingers and toes almost feel warm, and before long she realizes she is slowing down. 

A small part of her, near silent, thinks there is another comfort in death, too. She does not know if Jaehaerys Targaryen lives, but if he perished with the rest of his family, perhaps they will finally be together. If she cannot have Jon, she might still have this. 

So when she can hear the hounds and the horses, she is not afraid the way Theon is. He tries to drag her along, but her feet have grown numb and clumsy beneath her, and they refuse to obey either her orders or his. Surrendering the fight, he wraps her in his cloak with desperate hands, then hides her in the shelter of a rocky outcrop and places his body in front of hers. He has no sword to draw, only the bow he took off a guard’s corpse and a single arrow left. She has a weapon of her own, looted from the same dead man’s belt, and she grips the knife with fingers she cannot feel. It is a marvel that she manages to hold onto the blade at all, quaking with the cold as she is. 

But she does not need to discover if she is capable of fighting — or, worse, capable of using the dagger to open her own throat if they mean to carry her back to Winterfell. Almost as soon as Ramsay’s men burst through the trees, before Theon can even loose his arrow, they are cut down. The dark red of Brienne’s Valyrian steel gleams brighter where it’s wet with Bolton blood. 

Sansa was still Alayne when she first met Brienne of Tarth. The queer woman, as tall and strong as any knight, had promised to steal her away from Littlefinger, had insisted that she recognized Lady Catelyn’s eyes when she saw them, but Alayne swore she was just a baseborn girl. Her gaze was sharp enough to spot the lion head pommel on the woman’s sword, to recognize the squire half-hidden behind his lady. It made no difference that he no longer served Tyrion. There was plenty of Lannister gold to be had, and few who dared say no to the crown. Podrick Payne had always been gentle, but he was no friend of Alayne’s, and if the pair was working for Cersei, they would no doubt have killed Sansa Stark as soon as they had her alone. Alayne had called for Lothor Brune, her lord father’s loyal man, and he had escorted her back to their party.

Now, she has no fight left as Brienne pries the knife from her fingers and bundles her in a third cloak. The courage she’d clung to so tightly only moments before fails her, and she finds herself sobbing with abandon in the large woman’s arms. Once her tears have dried, once Sansa’s teeth have stopped knocking together, Podrick builds them a fire, and Theon uses his arrow to catch her a rabbit in the forest. Together, they warm her from the inside out. 

It would hardly matter if they did bring her to King’s Landing, but if words are wind, their actions are evidence enough of the loyalty they offer her. Theon tells them of Jon’s plan, and they agree to take her the rest of the way to the Wall. As night falls, Brienne and Podrick pledge their swords to her, and she offers them her own oaths in a voice hoarse from weeping. But as she gains one new protector in Brienne, she loses another. In the morning, Theon wakes her at first light to say goodbye. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Deviating from my normal Monday schedule to give you a lil Thursday treat so that when people come back next week, it's to some new material (finally). TY to everyone who has been patient and is reading and leaving kudos and writing nice comments. Love you love you.


	7. Jon IV

The Red Woman says her Lord of Light brought him back for a reason. She and Davos had both been lost in the wake of their king’s death, but they have found purpose in him, and she promises he will find purpose of his own. She has been wrong about so many things that he does not believe it is true. And then Sansa rides through the gates of Castle Black. 

At first, he cannot believe his eyes, sure that she is some apparition, that his hope that she has made it this far is playing some trick, that his time in the darkness has begun to haunt him with visions from his first life. _Ygritte, come to tell me that I know nothing_ , he thinks at first, trying to make sense of things, and then, _a girl in grey on a dying horse_. But her gown is made of roughspun, brown rags, her horse is hale and hearty, and when he blinks and she comes back into focus, his soulmate’s face is unmistakable. 

It matters not if she is a dream or a memory or vapor that will disappear as soon as he gets too close. Before he even realizes he’s moved, he finds himself in front of her. It’s only once she’s in his arms, her frozen cheek a shock of cold where it presses against his, that he trusts she’s truly real. 

\--

They spend that whole first night sitting around the hearth in the quarters he gives her in the King’s Tower, Ghost curled up at their feet. After Stannis fell, only those men who survived the Bolton battle and believed they were honor-bound to join the fight against the Others had trickled slowly back to the Wall, and they had taken to sleeping with the rest of the ranks. Even Val camps with the wildlings, Alys Karstark with her new husband and his people. The rooms of the tower are near empty save for Davos Seaworth and the Red Woman, and the knight has become as close to a friend as Jon has had since he sent Sam to Oldtown to earn his maester’s chain at the Citadel. 

He has faith in Davos like few others. Since the mutiny, his former black brothers are no longer his to command — and nearly all of them keep their distance after witnessing the Red Woman’s magic. Similarly, what’s left of the Baratheon army avoids the former hand and their king’s witch, giving their quarters a wide berth. Despite that, Jon has no misgivings about the hunger with which men at the Wall would eye his sister if given the chance, so he will not give them one. When he moves her into the King’s Tower, it is with Davos on one side and Brienne of Tarth on the other, Podrick Payne down the corridor. With Ghost sleeping in her chambers as well, ready to tear out the throats of any who would harm her, Sansa is as thoroughly protected as he can make her. 

But when he tries to bid her goodnight, she invites him to sit with her a little longer, and he hears himself agree before he has even made the decision to stay. At first, sitting by her fire, warming themselves in front of the flames, they say little. There is so much he wants to tell her, so much he wants to confess and be forgiven for, and yet he has words for none of it. 

For years, he had carried her mark on his heart, had waited desperately to see if she had his. The gods had given her some other name instead, but he had not let it deter him, had vowed instead to be like the heroes in Old Nan’s stories who pledged themselves to another for no reason more than the honor of offering love, protection. When it became clear she would go south, he had meant to join her, had even promised himself he would become one of those knights she so often dreamt of, but it was not meant to be. After their father’s capture, he had kept himself up at night imagining the danger she may be in down in King’s Landing. His vows had not stopped him from stealing a horse from the stables, but his brothers had ensured he never even made it as far as Winterfell. 

And then they had raised him to Lord Commander, tying him to the Wall more tightly than he’d ever been before. Kill the boy, Aemon Targaryen had told him before he sent the maester away. Kill the boy, and let the man be born. He had tried, but that boy who had wished for his soulmate had woken inside of him when he heard she was once more north of the Neck. Small as ever, weak as ever, helpless as ever, the boy had done nothing more than send Mance and Stannis after her, rest all his hopes on two kings he could not even give his loyalty. And then that letter had come, had finally spurred him into action. Kill the boy, and let the man be born. He’d killed the boy. His brothers had killed the man, too. 

Every time he tried to go to her, tried to act, the gods had stopped him. They had given him a soulmate and taken her just the same. It was a jape they played. It was a game. It is nothing short of a miracle that allows her to be here now, and he finds he can do nothing but look at her, take her in, see for himself that she truly sits safely before him. Eventually, flushed under the weight of his gaze, she looks up from the warm bowl of soup cradled in her hands and begins to speak. 

She tells him of losing Lady, then Arya, then Jeyne, then their father. She talks in quiet tones of King’s Landing, of Joffrey and Ser Meryn, of the Hound and Tyrion Lannister, of Ser Dontos and Littlefinger, of becoming Alayne and nearly losing Sansa Stark. She whispers to him Theon’s secret, that the two heads on Winterfell’s spikes belonged to the miller’s boys and not their baby brothers. Of her second husband, she says little and less, but what she does share is enough to have Jon wordlessly swearing to acquaint Longclaw with the Bolton bastard’s neck. He will take the heads of everyone who has ever hurt her, and he will never forgive himself for letting it all happen. 

When she finally quiets, he swallows down all those acid thoughts and fills the silence with his own stories instead. Vengeance is not something he can give her in a night, but gentleness, he can manage. An escape, he can manage. He does not speak of what happened with his men, of the daggers or the dark or the Red Woman’s magic, but he distracts her with epic tales of his battles on the Wall, his burning of the wights, his time with the free folk. 

It hurts to think of Ygritte, but he remembers how Sansa used to beg Old Nan for songs of true love, of those knights and ladies who found each other, found beauty in the world together despite all of the odds. Even the tragic ones, the ones without happy endings, she had asked to hear over and over. As he reminisces about a brave girl kissed by fire, Jon is surprised to discover he’s smiling, and his sister’s answering smile warms him to his toes. 

He tells her how Ygritte said he stole her, how she saved his life when Mance wanted to strike him down, how he held her on top of the Wall, and how she shot him with an arrow before dying in his arms. There is much he leaves out, some he embellishes. _Our love was complicated_ , he admits, _but we did have love._

Sansa reaches out to cover his hand in hers, but his breath leaves him when she asks if Ygritte is the name on his chest. He’d never told Robb about his mark, had thought to take it to his grave, but his brother’s eyes had been shrewd, and there were few secrets between the two eldest Stark pups. He shouldn’t be surprised that she knows he has a soulmate, and yet the question hits him like a physical force. Struck by guilt, shy in a way he hasn’t felt in years, his tongue is glued to the top of his mouth, but the words are important and finding the right ones feels urgent. 

_No_ , Jon tells her eventually, needing to make her understand, needing to find his own way to explain what their father had told him so long ago when he’d asked what would happen to Sansa. Bearing the name of someone she can never be with is a curse as much as it is a gift, and yet there is hope to be found in love, and love to be found if one is brave enough to look. That the gods would have given her to some fallen dragon does not mean she is doomed to a lonely life without him. If her mark has brought her nothing but pain, he would have her forget it entirely. The gods are not the only ones who get to decide. She only has to have courage enough to create her own path. _No_ , he says again. _But I chose her, and she chose me._

\--

The night after the Bolton flag is seen flying in Mole’s Town, he finds her hurriedly packing the few items she has in a small sack. She’d come to the Wall with nothing more than her gown and cloak, but Brienne found some spare blacks that Sansa has been working tirelessly to sew into something new. She’s wearing one of the dresses now as she flies around the room, Ghost prowling silently at her heels. 

At dinner, she’d sat in stoic silence after one of the few brothers Jon still trusts had told them of the sighting. He’d noted the way she trembled as Satin spoke, but she had simply finished her stew and bread before excusing herself from the room. He’d called after her, but when she turned back, her face was a mask, closed to him, and so he had let her go. After, he’d sent his wolf to her chambers and then found Ed, the Lord Commander the brothers had appointed after his death. There was no sign of an army anywhere near Castle Black, but the free folk that had settled in the Gift spoke of a flayed man standard planted firmly in the ground outside one of the Mole’s Town hovels. 

It had taken Jon no more than an hour to confirm the news, but that had apparently been enough time for Sansa to plan her flight from the castle. When he enters her quarters, the facade she had shown him earlier is gone. Instead, she’s flying around the room, frantic in a way he’s never seen her, not even in their youth when she’d first gotten her mark and screamed so loudly it brought half of Winterfell running. 

_Where are you going?_ Jon asks her, but she does not answer. _Sansa_ , he calls to no acknowledgment. He tries something else. _Would you leave me behind?_ That gives her pause, but her eyes are blazing when they finally meet his, the force of the fire in them sending him back a step. 

He does not need reminding that the men of the Night’s Watch take no part in the wars of the seven kingdoms, but she reminds him all the same. He does not need reminding what happens to black brothers who turn their backs on the Wall, and yet she tells him that, too. She insists she will not ask him to break his vows, will not make him into a deserter, but nor can she stay where the Bolton boy knows to find her. She had tried making her peace with death, but now that she has found some hope, she is loath to let it go. 

She has already spoken with Brienne and the lady’s squire, and the three of them have agreed to set out for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea no later than first light. She does not know where they will go from there, but she is willing to set her own honor aside and beg or barter for passage on a ship. She would have the world believe all of the Starks are dead once more, and she will become Alayne again. Podrick Payne will play her lord husband, Brienne her sister, and they will set sail for as far away as they can manage. 

The words come too quick, a jumble he struggles to process, and she will not be slowed or shushed no matter how he tries. All else he can think to do is catch her hands and pull her against his chest. She fights to break away, but he hugs her tight, refuses to relax his hold until she surrenders and sags against him, fingers curling into his jerkin, the material damp with her tears. Once she calms, once her shaking has stopped, he guides her back over to the hearth, and she allows him to settle her on the ground where they sat that first night, where they’ve sat so many nights since, trading secrets and stories. There are only two left he still has not told her. 

She is quiet now but refuses to look at him again, her stubborn gaze focused on the fire as she buries her fingers in Ghost’s fur. There are twin spots of color high on her wet cheeks, a mottled flush creeping down her neck. She is still thinking of leaving, determined to save them both, he’s sure, and it scares him to realize what he must do. Despite his resolve, it is his turn to shake, and there is a tremor in his hands as he slowly removes his cloak and pulls the laces free from his jerkin. 

_I died_ , Jon whispers, and that shocks her into snapping her gaze to his, blue eyes wide. _My watch ended when my brothers plunged their knives into my body. The Red Woman brought me back. I did not know why, at first, but I do now. The old gods let me return to you so that I might keep you safe._ Unlaced, his jerkin and tunic are loose enough that he can pull them aside, and he blushes when her gaze falls to his skin. She gasps when she sees the jagged scar, angry and red — but once she sees his mark, she does not manage to make any noise at all. 

He shivers when she crawls close enough to brush her fingers first over the wound, then over her name. _I would fight for you_ , he promises, his voice breaking the reverent silence as she presses her palm to his heart. _I should have come with you to King’s Landing all of those years ago. I should have ridden south as soon as I heard they wanted to make you a Bolton._ He covers her hand with his, and her fingers are warm against his skin. _If you would stay, if you would let me, I would give you Ramsay’s head. I would cut down every flayed man who dared to try and stop me. Bran, Rickon, Arya — they may not be dead, but they are lost to us all the same. That makes you Robb’s heir_ , he reminds her, _and I would raise an army and retake Winterfell in your name._


	8. Sansa IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before, sitting in front of her fire, Sansa had been too lightheaded from the sight of his wound, from the sight of her name, to say much of anything. When Jon had finally bid her get some rest, she had spent even longer staring at the stones in the ceiling, thinking about what might have been.

Perhaps it is because he bears her mark, or perhaps it is because she is no longer a wolf without a pack, but Sansa feels stronger with Jon by her side, much in the way she had expected to within the walls of her ancestral keep. Soon enough, he has pledged that she will have both her home and her family, and the thought makes her heart soar.

But she has learned that life is not a song, and hope only ever leads to heartache. After a few hours of sleep, once she has regained her wits, she refuses her brother’s offer. The night before, sitting in front of her fire, she had been too lightheaded from the sight of his wound, from the sight of her name, to say much of anything. When he had finally bid her get some rest, she had spent even longer staring at the stones in the ceiling, thinking about what might have been. But of course, none of it would have happened any differently if she had known sooner, would it? He told her he had asked their lord father’s permission to join them in the south, and yet Lord Stark had refused him. 

She had been a romantic girl, naive, had dreamed of having a soulmate and a love story the bards would write songs about. To be her sibling’s soulmate — that was not what she had always imagined, and yet there was still something beautiful about it, was there not? Legend said Aemon the Dragonknight had been brother and soulmate both to Queen Naerys, had even joined the Kingsguard for the love of her. He had championed her, defended her honor, defended her life. Wouldn’t Sansa have wanted the same? Was her Targaryen mark not some kind of sign?

And yet she had been so scared back then of what it meant to be branded with a dragon’s name. It does no good to wonder if her father might have made a different decision if she too had begged him to let Jon be her sworn shield. She would never have asked. That King Robert had been able to overlook her mark was generous enough. She would not have taken that for granted and risked insulting her future husband or his family by inviting her baseborn half-brother to court. Jon had kept his secret so that he would never shame her, but she is shamed now for a reason entirely her own. 

Even if she lets herself imagine that he would somehow have been welcome, invited by King Robert himself, it would have made no difference. She and her sister and her father had traveled south with a retinue of brave and loyal men, and not one of them had survived the capital. The Lannisters would have slain him the same as they murdered Jory Cassel and Jeyne Poole and the rest of her father’s household, and there would be no red priest or priestess to bring him back. His would have been one more head she was made to look at on the spikes. 

She could not have had him then. She still can’t have him now. Jon has told her enough of the Others to have her doubt his decision to abandon the Wall for her. Lady Melisandre had called him the prince that was promised, destined to wield the sword that would end the war against the dead. The woman has power beyond what Sansa can begin to understand, and if she is to be believed, Jon’s place is with his brothers in black. The old gods may have given him her name, released him from his vows, but they have also made his path clear. His duty is to the realm, not to her. 

Jon disagrees, and his eyes are fierce as he paces the room, incensed, determined to rebut every argument she would make. If she does not want him, he argues, she must say so, but if her only concern is his honor, he would light it afire to keep her warm. The men of the Night’s Watch are no longer any brothers of his. His only brothers now are Robb and Bran and Rickon, all dead or gone besides, and yet a living sister stands before him. It is not duty that binds him to her, nor the will of the gods, but love. With the Boltons gone, they would ensure her safety, secure the greatest stronghold in the north, and continue their brother’s legacy in one fell swoop. 

It is not just her husband he would protect her from, he insists, but the Others as well. Holding Winterfell would be nothing but a boon if they hope to survive the Long Night. He carries on, but she has stopped listening, his voice washing over her as the room begins to spin, the words between his words clicking into place.

_He means to make me queen_ , she thinks, her legs turning to jelly as she sinks to the floor. Ghost is by her side in a second, his cold snout at her cheek, and Jon is close behind. He crouches before her, all of his fury gone, his grey eyes guilty and his face pale. He is saying something, but she cannot hear him over the blood rushing in her ears. The night before, in the light of the hearth, he had called her Robb’s heir, not their father’s, but she had not thought — had not considered — 

Once, she had wanted to be royalty. During the Battle of the Blackwater, she had joined hands with all of the ladies sheltering in the Red Keep and raised her voice in song, and she had promised herself that, if she were ever to be queen, she would lead with love and kindness instead of fear. That girl is long gone, though, and now she wants only to hold tight to all the family she has left in this world. He would give her that, too, she knows. There are no gods that can promise to keep her or Jon from harm, but if she concedes, if they take Winterfell and she takes Robb’s throne, she will get to have him for as long as they both live. 

She blinks, and the world is steady around her once more. When she reaches for his arm, Jon seizes her by the elbows and helps her back to her feet, then reaches for her cheek and pulls her to his chest. He presses apologies into her hair, murmuring softly that he did not mean to make her afraid, and the words startle a laugh out of her. The thought of it, that Jon Snow could scare her, that the man she trusts above all others in the world could frighten her — She steps back so that she can meet his eye. 

_I am not afraid_ , she vows and finds that, somehow, it is the truth. _You are Lord Eddard Stark’s son, and I am his daughter. We are wolves, and Winterfell will be ours. You are right. Together, we can make it so._

\--

Saying as much does not make it easily done. She writes ravens to all the houses of the north, but few return. After her brother — a Lannister prisoner — Alys is the heir to Karhold, but only one woman. Her uncle Arnolf Karstark betrayed Stannis Baratheon and pledged his loyalty and his men to the crown. With their lord still held within the Twins, the Umbers also fight beside the Boltons. The lord of Deepwood Motte is another hostage to the lions, and the remaining Glovers will not risk his life. The mountain clans are theirs, but their numbers were depleted in the Young Wolf’s war. As for the birds sent south of Winterfell, there is no reason to believe they even reached their destinations before being shot down by Bolton arrows. 

Littlefinger told her the north would answer Sansa Stark’s call when the time came. Littlefinger lied, and the frustration of being spurned by so many of their bannermen is wearing away at her resolve. 

When Jon tells her that Ser Davos was a smuggler before he was made Hand of the King, she sees another way to reach the houses they have yet to hear from. Stannis’s death left ships abandoned at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, and Sansa directs the knight to steal into White Harbor in one of the boats and treat with the Manderlys. She orders Podrick to sail with him, to take another vessel to the Neck in search of Greywater Watch and the Reeds. Yet, as the days pass, there is no word from either of them. 

There is no time to send a messenger any further south, whether by ship or by horse, and besides, there is no one else to send. The free folk may have aligned themselves with Jon, but Sansa does not think it wise for the wildlings to venture any further into Westeros without escort. Lady Melisandre named Jon the prince that was promised, said that she was his to command, and came up with the scheme to send Sansa aid, and yet Jon seems to have no love for her, nor does Brienne. Even if they could trust her, there is no guarantee she will be able to bend anyone else’s ear. 

Her uncle Edmure is held by the Lannisters, and though they say her great-uncle Brynden the Blackfish escaped the lion’s clutches, they know not where to find him. There is Littlefinger and the Knights of the Vale, but he has not returned any of her letters. She had been unsure what his answer would be — and unsure of the price of that answer — but had written him regardless. He had thought to give her the north right under Cersei’s nose, thought to oust the flayed men with little bloodshed of their own. All she had needed was a babe and some sort of hunting accident, and the keep would’ve been hers to rule without a single battle. But in calling himself her protector, he had left her alone with the Boltons. Would he support her turning against them earlier than he had planned? Would he still answer her call if she had upset his schemes? 

Their only hope is the Mormonts, though little Lady Lyanna had responded to their raven with nothing more than an invitation to Bear Island. Lady Maege Mormont’s youngest daughter had refused Stannis Baratheon’s call out of love and loyalty to the Starks, and it is said she still holds their family’s ancestral home in the name of the King in the North. Her eldest sister, Dacey, was slain at the Red Wedding, but Maege has begun beating back the krakens that remain in the north, capturing men and ships alike with her three other daughters. 

Bear Island has no love for Lannisters and even less for the Boltons. Their numbers are small, but hundreds of years of staving off Ironborn reavers and wildling clans has made their people into ferocious fighters. If they are willing to put the past aside and join forces with the free folk, if they might find a common cause in a shared enemy, the Starks have a chance of holding Winterfell once more. 

The Mormonts send ships to meet them where the mountains south of the Shadow Tower give way to the sea, but when they arrive on Bear Island, there is still only Lady Lyanna there to hold court. A girl of 10, she is young, younger than even Arya was the last time Sansa saw her, but she is no less fierce for it. Attended by her advisors and a niece, a Mormont daughter only a year or so younger, Lyanna bows her head respectfully at Sansa and Brienne, but her gaze is cool as she regards Jon. 

He is a deserter, Lyanna declares with no preamble. Her mother says deserters from the Watch are to be put to death, and she has witnessed their executions on more than one occasion. She wonders why they should not throw Jon in their dungeons now, when he has not only broken his oaths but brought a party of wildlings to camp outside the keep’s wooden gates besides. 

Jon’s face twists into a grimace, Brienne adjusts her grip on her sword, and Ghost’s fur bristles in warning, but Sansa raises a hand and all of them still. _My lady_ , she addresses Lyanna, stepping forward and dipping into a low curtsy. _I understand if it is too much to ask of the Mormonts to fight side-by-side with the people they’ve opposed for hundreds of years, but we would be grateful if you would join our cause. We mean to take Winterfell back from the Boltons, and there is still a greater war to be had once that is done. The Others have returned, my lady, and we will have need for every warrior who would pledge their life to that fight, no matter if they are wildling or Westerosi._

_As for my brother_ , she continues, _he served your lord uncle faithfully before his death. After the Old Bear’s passing, Jon followed in his footsteps and became the next Lord Commander himself. It was Stannis Baratheon that first let the free folk through the Wall, but Jon has made them into loyal northmen. He fulfilled his vows, and no man spoke against him when he retired from his post. Even now, he carries the sword Jeor Mormont gave him._

_What’s more, he is not simply my kin_ , she explains, and her hand finds Jon’s beside her. His cheeks are flushed when he meets her gaze, but she smiles, waiting for him to give the slightest nod. She squeezes his hand when he does and, eyes still locked on his, she says, _He bears my name on his chest. By the old gods, his place is at my side._ Turning back to Lyanna, she bows her own head in respect. _If you will not readily host us, we will leave at once. But to commit violence against any member of my party is to turn your back on the Starks._

Lyanna frowns, the muscles in her tiny jaw jumping, but she soon smooths her face into something that could be acceptance. House Mormont has kept faith with House Stark for hundreds of years, she says finally. Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. 


	9. Jon V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old Nan had always told them that Mormont women were skinchangers, that they became bears in the night. He would believe it of Maege, with her calloused hands and meticulous gaze that makes Jon’s cheeks burn.

Lady Maege returns to Bear Island with her daughters Alysane, Lyra, and Jorelle in tow. She grants Sansa an audience first, but she wishes to speak with Jon alone. When he comes to her solar, her eyes go first to the white wolf doublet his sister has made him, then to Longclaw, strapped to Jon’s back. Old Nan had always told them that Mormont women were skinchangers, that they became bears in the night. He would believe it of Maege, with her calloused hands and meticulous gaze that makes Jon’s cheeks burn. 

Her stare is as shrewd as her brother’s was, and he remembers now that she was the one who sent the sword north when Jorah Mormont left it behind. Behind her, Alysane, stout but plainly strong, the mother of the little bear in Lyanna’s court, wraps her fingers around the pommel of her own sword. Jorelle — Jory, the girls had called her — twirls a mace in her young but well-scarred hands. 

When Maege speaks, her voice is near as deep as the Old Bear’s as she tells him that she never expected to see him leave the Wall. Sansa is off with the little lady of the keep, guarded by both Brienne and Ghost, which means his well-spoken sister is not here to plead his case this time. He opens his mouth to explain, fingers already scrambling to tug his jerkin aside and show them the scar, but Lyra, a tall woman of 19 with an axe hanging from a belt at her waist, pointedly clears her throat. His jaw clicks shut, and his hand drops obediently back to his side. 

Silence falls, then Maege continues. His brother wanted to free him from his vows, she says. Throughout his war, the Young Wolf had taken his share of prisoners in the field, and he had thought to send the greatest share of them to the Watch in Jon’s place. One hundred men for him. But that dream had died with his brother at the Red Wedding. 

Once, he had wanted nothing more than to fight by Robb’s side. Knowing that his brother wanted the same steals the breath away from him. _Why_ , Jon finally croaks. He finds that it is difficult to talk around a lump that has sprung up in his throat, but Maege pays it no mind, telling him plainly enough that he’s Robb’s heir. 

The Young Wolf had written so in a royal decree and had many of his bannermen fix their seals to the parchment. The document itself was likely lost to the ages, but Maege remembers its contents, and her king had commanded her to take word to Greywater Watch. By the time she had found the crannogmen — or rather by the time the crannogmen found her — word of the Frey’s betrayal had already reached the Neck. Upon her return to Bear Island, she had thought to send for him at the Wall to pick up his brother’s crown, but there was no trade to be made any longer and no king under whose rule it could be made. 

The words leave him winded, staggering back a step as he struggles to make sense of them. _My sister_ , is all he manages. _What of Sansa?_

But Sansa was married to the Imp, still deep in the Lannisters’ clutches when Robb died. She is free of them now, and yet the Boltons still lay some claim to her, Lyra explains, not unkindly. Alysane shrugs, less interested in such details. When they separate the Bolton bastard’s head from his shoulders, Sansa will be a Stark once more, but Robb’s will was clear. She is still Lord Eddard’s heir, and they will kneel to her as Lady of Winterfell, as their liege lady. But her brother had only one Stark sibling left to him at the time of his death, and the king would not have his kingdom fall into the hands of their enemies. He would not give them a foothold in the north, and in doing so had Sansa moved down the line of succession. 

_She is trueborn_ , he tries weakly. _I am only a bastard._ He knows there are no bastards on Bear Island, knows Maege never took a lord husband and yet named all five of her daughters Mormont, knows now Alysanne did the same with her two babes, but the rest of the north, the rest of the seven kingdoms, live by different laws. And yet even that they have an answer for. 

He has been Jon Snow all his life, a bastard born in the south with the blood of the north. They name him Stark. Only days before his murder, Robb had legitimized him in in that same decree. The Mormonts have no crown for him, but they say he is a Stark and a king besides. Maege swears it by the old gods, and Jory clucks her tongue sympathetically as Jon takes another clumsy step back. 

_I don’t want it_ , he says, eyes wide. After he had gotten his mark, he had thought often about how it might feel to see Jon Stark on Sansa’s skin, to become legitimate even in just that small way. It would not have made him any less a bastard, but to be a Stark in the eyes of the old gods would be almost as good as if Lady Catelyn really had been his mother. And then Stannis Baratheon had offered him that same name. He had found the strength to turn away from those dreams then, and he can do it again now. _Sansa is my soulmate_ , he says, voice steadier this time. _I bear her name. I would not steal her birthright from beneath her. Bran and Rickon may yet live –_

Alysane grows tired of his refusals. Bran and Rickon are not here, and it matters not what he wants, she interrupts. Robb’s kingdom is not Sansa’s to be stolen. This is where they stand. If he should wish it otherwise, he can name his soulmate sister his own heir, and once the Stark direwolf is flying over Winterfell, once Ramsay Bolton is dead, he can abdicate for all the Mormonts care. Should Bran and Rickon ever return, the north will be his to give them, but Robb was their king. They swore their oaths to him, vowing to live by his rule and his law. Whether he wishes it or not, he is Jon Stark, the King in the North.

\--

He is sure Sansa will hate him, sure she will look at him through the same eyes Lady Catelyn had over Bran’s sickbed so many years ago. He is miserable when he tells her, cannot bear to meet her gaze where she stands before the island’s heart tree. He promises the throne is hers as soon as the battle is won, drops to his knees to pledge that she is still and will always be his queen. She is silent for so long that he fears she will never speak to him again. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Brienne with her hand on the pommel of her sword, mouth tight, eyes narrowed. If she would challenge him for her lady’s honor, he would not put up a fight. She served Lady Stark before Sansa, this he knows, and he has paid insult to them both. 

But when he finally looks up to her, their gazes meet only for a moment before Sansa sinks into the deepest curtsy Jon has ever seen, and there is no bitterness in her face when she calls him her king. She loved her brother Robb, the first King in the North in near 300 years, and she would follow his wishes no matter what they may be, she swears.

 _It should be you_ , he pleads, _I’m only a bastard_ , but Sansa hushes him and takes his hand, holding it between both of hers as she guides him back to his feet. He may not have been raised to be a great lord like Robb was, but neither was she. He learned at their lord father’s feet as well as their brothers did, and he became the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, chosen by his men to rule over three different keeps. _And they mutinied_ , he reminds her, but she does not let him interrupt. 

He was the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, their brother’s heir, their father's son, and he will be a great king. There is no man better suited to rule the north. There is no man she would rather lead their people into battle. There is no man she trusts more with her life. When she brings his hand to her lips and brushes a kiss across his knuckles, she looks at him in a way that almost makes him feel worthy of it all. He bears her name, she reminds him, and so she knows he would never aim to hurt her, but she knew that even before he showed her his mark. The gods promise protection to no one, but with Brienne by her side and Jon Stark as her king, she feels safer than she has in years. 

The next morning, they board the ships to sail back south to the mainland, with the free folk and the Mormonts by their side.


	10. Sansa V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa does her best to keep the peace and bridge the gaps between their disparate party, and Alys and her marriage to one of the free folk fighters helps smooth the gaps between the Westerosi and the wildlings, but the threat of coming face to face with her lord husband looms constantly in her mind, driving her to frustration ever more easily.

They dock near Deepwood Motte. The Glovers will not give them men, but neither will they give chase, and Jon leads their march through the wolfswood after Lady Sybelle Glover fills their saddlebags with provisions for the journey. After that, they keep to the trees, steering clear of the paths. It is not so fast as riding the horses they have down the cleared roads, but Jon believes the forest helps hide their camp from any Bolton scouts. By the time they emerge south of Winterfell, the crannogmen are there to meet them, Podrick Payne standing proudly beside their commander. The Cerwyns have also agreed to join their cause, though their numbers are few. 

Sansa studied the art of clever schemes at Littlefinger’s side. She learned how to spill endless honeyed words, all false, from Cersei’s example. Through her own play and practice, she honed her skill at slipping dark wishes into innocent tidings. But none of that prepared her to lead a battle, and she finds herself vexed and with little to add when Jon invites her to give him guidance. Her brother grew up in Winterfell the same as she did, and as a boy he was taught much and more that she wasn’t about the defenses of the keep and the land around it. All she has to offer is knowledge of Ramsay’s cruelty, and the creativity of it means the workings of his mind are unknowable even to her. 

Thankfully, she is not the only member of her brother’s council. Little Lady Lyanna may have mistrusted her brother, but her mother left her behind to hold Bear Island with a few good men, and the rest of the Mormont women have become some of Jon’s closest advisors despite his fondness for the free folk. Sansa suspects they are even starting to find common cause with some of the spearwives and Val, the beautiful wildling woman who some call princess. Lady Melisandre has words of wisdom to offer as well, though her flames only give her vague assurances that Winterfell will be theirs, and the crannogmen mistrust her visions. Howland Reed is holding their keep still in the Neck, but his men say their lord’s son is a powerful greenseer, and they don’t take kindly to a red priestess’s predictions. 

Sansa does her best to keep the peace and bridge the gaps between their disparate party, and Alys and her marriage to one of the free folk fighters helps smooth the gaps between the Westerosi and the wildlings, but the threat of coming face to face with her lord husband looms constantly in her mind, driving her to frustration ever more easily. Jon believes in their chances — he has done more with less, he assures her — but Sansa knows he would not admit to any doubts even if he had them, not to her. Yet when he confesses one night that he wishes Davos had returned to them, she knows that he worries he will fall in battle. 

He would have the Onion Knight with her, if he could, ready to smuggle her away from the fight if need be. Instead, she will have Brienne and Pod and Ghost. Lady Maege and Alysane will be nearby as well, ready to defend the women and children, the ill and infirm. Their ships are still in the harbor off the coast of Deepwood Motte should they need to flee. 

Selfishly, Sansa longs for Jon to be the one to stay by her side, not just for her protection but for his own. She nearly demands it of him before she remembers that he is her king now and not hers to command. Still, she could ask, and she wonders if he would grant that wish. She knows his place is leading their armies, his duty is to their people. But he has her name over his heart. Would he refuse her? 

She could not bear to find out if the answer were yes, so she reminds herself of her own duty and instead warns him that there will be some trickery to come. The Freys, the Boltons — they do not play fair or abide by the laws of battle, and Ramsay least of all. Whatever rules he agrees to, he will change them as soon as the game begins. She had tried to play along often enough, and almost always been more fool for it. When Jon and the rest finally return from meeting her lord husband for one final parley, it becomes clear what his scheme will be. Jon challenged Ramsay to single combat, and Ramsay has accepted. 

_This is some ploy_ , she warns Jon once they’re back in his tent, his other advisors dismissed for the night. _You cannot fight him alone. You cannot win. He won’t allow it._ He tries to remind her that the Bolton’s numbers are far greater than theirs, that the odds are in their favor this way, but she will not hear it. _He will poison his sword or — or drown the earth on which you fight in wildfire and wait for a spark_ , she pleads. _He will not play fair._

But in the morning, Jon rides out with Tormund Giantsbane by his side as his second. As Ramsay climbs onto his own mount to meet them, the sky behind him fills with arrows, Jon and Tormund’s horses scream and rear and fall under the assault, and the Bolton soldiers charge. 

\--

They owe their victory to the Knights of the Vale, who rode in as the battle was nearly lost. Littlefinger escorts her through the gates of Winterfell with her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, then tells her the castle is hers. The Knights of the Vale have taken it from the Boltons in her honor. She thanks him politely, dipping her head in respect, but her gaze finds her half-brother scowling across the courtyard. 

He is still bloody from battle, but the Cerwyns’ maester is tending to his wounds, wrapping bandages around an arm that was grazed by Ramsay’s arrows. Her husband has already been carted off to the dungeons, his men dead or surrendered, taken prisoner while they await their trials. Jon will see to them all in the coming days, but first they will put the castle to rights. She had sewn him his own standard — a white wolf on a gray field, acknowledging him both as the Snow he once was and the Stark he has become — and it waves over their heads now. When he catches her eye, he stands and walks across the courtyard towards her. 

If she had ever planned to accept the crown, she knows now he must keep it. She had thought him sure to fall as the battle raged before her, thought that surely his reign was already over. If she lived, survived at all, it would not be as a queen but as a refugee in some far away country, fleeing her husband and spending the rest of her days in hiding. The only reason both of them still stand is the man holding her hand in place against the rich velvet of his doublet. They are in his debt now — and she knows all too well what he would ask in repayment. If she must give that to him, she will not let it also be a pathway to the throne. 

_Lord Baelish, perhaps you had not heard during those long days traveling north_ , she tells him, steeling herself and raising her chin encouragingly at Jon, hoping her meaning will be clear. _We have a new king now. My brother Robb left behind a will before his death, legitimizing and naming his heir._ Littlefinger is loath to let go of her hand, but she slips out of his grasp and reaches for Jon instead, who shifts his burning gaze to Lord Baelish. _If the Knights of the Vale would still fight for Winterfell, then it is His Grace Jon Stark to whom they should pledge their swords, love and loyalty_ , she says. 

Littlefinger does not flinch nor wince nor smile any wider than the smirk that always lingers in the corners of his mouth. His face changes not at all, and this is how she knows he is displeased. It matters not. She will do what she can to soothe these hurts later, to guarantee he will still fight for them. She will find some way that giving Jon his allegiance furthers his interests. 

Winterfell may be won, but the fight against the Others remains to come, and they will have need of his men. Jon already detests Littlefinger, had insisted that he only sold her to the Boltons so he could rescue her from them later. Her brother understands that they need all of the allies they can get, and yet he urges her not to trust Petyr Baelish. Sansa knows he speaks true, but she also knows they have no other choice. If they could not hold their own against the Boltons, they have no hope against the army of the dead. Even if they pardon every single man who fought for her husband’s cause and add them to their own ranks, it will be a perilous endeavor. Littlefinger has enough of the Vale lords in his pocket, whether through money or darker means, to bind them to Jon’s cause. They need every soldier they can convince to fight for them. 

She also knows that he is not a man to trifle with, and they cannot afford to make an enemy of him. All the aid he has given her has hardly come out of the goodness of his heart, and yet he has given it freely all the same. He pledged no oaths of fealty that would require him to continue fighting by her side, and it is only the expectation that she will repay that generosity that binds him to her. She had been so alone in King’s Landing after the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion and Margaery set their friendship aside, and Petyr had been the only one looking out for her, whether she knew it or not. She had only fallen further into his debt when her aunt had held her by her hair at the edge of the Moon Door, her slipper slipping right over the edge. 

Even if she should reveal what she knows about Lysa’s tears and secret letters, what she had pretended to misunderstand and forget as she sunk deeper into Alayne, there is no telling what contingencies he will have put in place, if he will somehow be able to implicate her in her aunt’s death even now. Until they are able to win the lords’ loyalty and love through their own merit, they will have to learn to work alongside Lord Baelish. Whatever price he sets, they must pay. But he will not be so forward as to come out and ask it, at least not yet, and so he bows his head respectfully to Jon and calls him king. 

Sansa takes Littlefinger’s arm again and leads him into the keep, and it is only once they are alone in the quarters she has found for him that he makes a show of gripping her by both shoulders, eyes scanning her from head to heel. He wants to know if she is well, if she is hurt. He had written her letters after her wedding, but she had never responded. He had wanted to storm the castle, he promises her, but if Cersei had heard of him marching the Knights of the Vale up the King’s Road without cause, she would have known to send the Lannister armies after him, and he wouldn’t have been able to rescue her from the Boltons and hold the castle against the lions, not on his own. 

Even still, the crown thinks they had traveled north to join the Boltons in the battle, not slay them — he will be in open defiance once word reaches the south. But he has done it all for her, to save her, to protect her, to give her Winterfell in her own right. He has men, he assures her. She and Jon had amassed as large of an army they could, but the Knights of the Vale count more than double the men they have. Petyr swears that if Jon has usurped her crown from her, they will take that back, too, and Sansa feels her back stiffen. 

She does not wish to tell him. It is too close to her heart, too precious a gift, but it is hardly a secret among their people. It is better that he hears this from her. She would not have him look at her brother and see danger to be dealt with. _Jon has taken nothing from me and offered me everything_ , she insists firmly, even as her stomach roils. _He wears the crown because our brother bestowed it upon him, because it united our armies, but he would give it to me if I asked._ It is a struggle to force the next words out without revealing how uneasy this exchange makes her. _He has my mark_ , she says. 

She sees the way Littlefinger’s eyes glint at the revelation. What it means to her is not what it means to him. They are all pawns in his game, and this is just another piece at his disposal. She is playing once more, just as she always was with Ramsay. At least now she knows the rules. So long as Jon does not present a threat to Littlefinger, he will have no need to dispose of him — and so long as he knows that Jon would abdicate his throne, he will be patient, will wait until the moment is right to place Sansa upon it and rule beside her. For now, she can buy time to find another way. She can stay his hand with the right combination of words. 

_I am loyal to Jon as my king, but he is loyal to me as his soulmate_ , she continues. _Whatever you would have, you need but ask it of me, and I would ask it of him. Whatever you wish, my lord, you will not be refused._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello! So when I first started posting this story, I had already written like the first eight-ish chapters? I kept obvs writing but was a bit outpaced with my posting schedule, which puts us now at chapter ten. I continued to edit/rewrite as I go, and I have about three/four more chapters mostly written, so I will keep posting every Monday for a while longer. BUT starting in January I am going to be a lot busier with personal stuff so I am not sure how consistently I will be able to continue my Monday schedule after that. Gonna do my best to stay on top of things and keep plugging along but just wanted to give everyone a heads up. TY for reading so far!!!! OK love you bye.


	11. Jon VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon sits in the high stone chair his brother and father sat in before him, but Sansa stands before the table on the raised platform, coolly eyeing her lord husband. She is the Lady of Winterfell, and this is her keep, not his.

They keep the Bolton bastard’s trial short. His men will have an opportunity to explain themselves, their actions, but Ramsay is bound and gagged in the middle of the room. Jon sits in the high stone chair his brother and father sat in before him, but Sansa stands before the table on the raised platform, coolly eyeing her lord husband. She is the Lady of Winterfell, and this is her keep, not his. Jon has practiced the words with her, and she is ready, he knows, but he itches to stand beside her, to help still her hands if they should tremble. 

It is her first time seeing her husband since she ran from him, but she is steady, as immovable as steel as she asks if he denies harming her, denies his cruelty and violence. She asks if he denies his abuse of the late Lady Hornwood, denies his hunts with Winter Town girls out in the woods, denies his torture of Theon Greyjoy. He shakes his head no in answer to every question, his mouth hidden beneath strips of fabric, but Jon swears he’s smiling all the same. 

When Sansa finishes, she looks to the back of the room, and Mance Rayder steps forward. The Red Woman found him in the dungeons, less a few digits and the skin of his back, but breathing. Val and Tormund had both been shocked to discover him alive, having survived not only the Bolton bastard’s dungeons but what they believed were Stannis’s witch’s flames. Now, the former king’s good sister stands proudly by his side, back straight, his former commander on the other. Mance tells his own tale of treachery and mistreatment. He speaks for the spearwives who stole into Winterfell with him. He speaks for himself. Ramsay denies none of that, either. When Sansa finally looks back to Jon and nods, he grits his teeth and stands. 

_The blood of the First Men flows in our veins, and we still live by their way_ , he says. _Before a man is put to death, we would hear his final words._

Sansa is as stone-faced as he’s ever seen her as she turns back to the Bolton bastard and walks forward, her nimble fingers gentle as she unties the fabric gag at the back of her husband’s head. Jon may be the King in the North, Lord Ramsay Bolton his prisoner, but it is the Lady of Winterfell’s justice he faces for his crimes against her and the people of Winterfell. Jon would cut his throat and be done with it, but it is by her rule that he is sentenced to death, and she would see what he has to say for himself. 

But the words that spill out of the Bolton bastard’s mouth are vile, poison, and Jon finds his fist smashing into the man’s jaw — once, twice, a third time — before he even realizes he’s vaulted the table and crossed half the room. Members of their court are on their feet, shouting, but it is Sansa’s hand on his arm that breaks through the buzz of his blood pumping in his ears and stays him. He pants, breathless, and now Ramsay’s smile around a mouthful of blood and broken teeth is as clear as ever. With another tug of his arm, Sansa pulls him back a step then moves in front of him to stuff the fabric back between the Bolton bastard’s lips. That done, she turns and nods, and Jon hauls him out into the courtyard by the back of his ruined doublet, dragging him to the block. 

This they’ve practiced, too, and it is Brienne who steps forward once Jon has their prisoner at his feet. Longclaw is a bastard sword he wears strapped to his back, too long and too heavy for Sansa by a measure. Ice was even larger, a greatsword that required two hands to wield, but the Kingslayer told Brienne the Lannisters melted it down and cleaved it in half. Oathkeeper is a longsword, light in Sansa’s hands, and she can lift it over her head with ease. She does not have the strength on her own to slash through skin and muscle and bone in one cut, but she has the will, and it is only right that she passes their father’s justice with what remains to them of their father’s sword. 

Brienne kneels before Sansa, and his sister takes the weapon from the other woman’s hands. Jon steps up behind her, then, his chest flush with her back, and his bloodied hands bookend hers on the grip. He cannot do this for her, but he can help. He will not have his soulmate carrying that weight alone. If the gods will allow it, she will never have to do anything alone ever again. He will be by her side for the rest of his life. Together, they lift the sword high, and then, as one, they bring it down on Ramsay Bolton’s neck. 

\--

The other trials are less lively. The Karstarks belong to Alys to pardon or punish as she wishes, the Umbers he largely grants mercy in exchange for their fealty, the Boltons and the Freys he sends to take the black. They cannot spare any soldiers, even those who deserve no more than the sharp edge of his sword. Soon enough they will see that the time for battles between men has passed. In the war against the dead, there is only the living, and the Others will come for them all. 

Littlefinger is the only enemy left in his court, but Jon defers to Sansa when she says they need him. Despite that, he vows to her that he will not grant her hand in marriage to anyone, let alone Petyr Baelish, now that they have made her a widow. She will wed for no reason that is not her own, and if she would wish it, he would have her wear the name over his heart for the rest of her days, keep her a Stark and by his side as they rule Winterfell together. 

But Sansa insists he must one day find a queen in truth. A king must have an heir — and though he has given her that honor, would give her his crown if she would take it, she has explained how that would only push the responsibility back on her. Kings and queens must make alliances, and all too often those bonds are forged through marriage. He has promised her that any match she may have will be one of her own making, which means that it falls to him to do his duty.

In his own secret heart, he knows having a family is something he has always wanted, and yet the idea of making a match only for strategic purposes is not one he is fond of. Then again, he had not gone looking for love beyond the Wall, and he’d found it all the same with Ygritte. It had come easy with her, crept up on him before he had realized what was happening. Should it take work, he can learn to build it the way his lord father had with Lady Catelyn. Even if the love never comes, so long as wedding means Sansa will be able to choose the life she leads, will be able to stay in Winterfell with him as long as she wishes, he will do it gladly. And it would not be so bad to marry one of the Mormonts or Manderlys. 

Lord Wyman, his men, and his two granddaughters had ridden up to their gates not more than a fortnight after the battle for Winterfell was won. They could not afford to stand against the Boltons before the fighting began, not when it meant death for Lord Wyman’s remaining son, another hostage to Queen Cersei, and the promise of destruction for the rest of the family line. But once Wylis was returned to them — exchanged with his brother’s bones for the tarred hands and feet of the Onion Knight, or at least a criminal who looked alike enough to pass — they had rallied their host and headed north. 

Now, they mean to be of service to their king as they should have been since the second he raised his banners. After making a show of Davos’s false death, they had sent him up through the Bay of Seals to Skagos. There had been a mute boy in Winterfell all of those years ago who had seen Bran and Rickon flee the castle. Bran had continued north with two others, Howland Reed’s children if the crannogmen had the right of it, but the boy had followed Rickon and a wildling woman when they turned east, tracking them until they reached the water. Without a true port for miles, there could only be one place to go from there, and the mermen had charged the smuggler with the task of traveling to the island and returning Jon’s youngest brother to his rightful home.

Taking a wife, he thinks, would be a fair price to be reunited with both his brother and soulmate, to have the three of them all home and safe. But then a raven comes.

\--

Dark wings, dark words. The saying rings true. Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen, bids him travel to Dragonstone so that he may join forces with Daenerys Targaryen, who names herself sovereign of the Seven Kingdoms. The whispers of her arrival in Westeros had already reached the keep, but the north had reclaimed its independence once more. The matter of who sat the Iron Throne was no business of theirs — and yet the woman who calls herself the mother of dragons would be their ally, if Lannister’s letter is to be believed. 

It is Sansa who reads between the lines. The Seven Kingdoms, Tyrion named them, not the Six. They will not recognize the secession of the north, and they do not write to him as King Jon Stark or even King Jon Snow. They will want him to kneel — and though Daenerys will have use for their armies if they mean to fight against Cersei, she will not expect to make a fair trade. She will demand it of them as queen. 

And yet, if a trade could be made, if they could fight for her throne and she for their lives — They call her the dragon queen for a reason. Armies aside, her creatures would be invaluable in the fight against the dead. Even if all this Targaryen will give them is the dragonglass that sits below her keep, the dragonglass that Stannis promised the Wall before his death, they would be able to make good use of it. 

_I’ll go_ , Jon tells his advisors, and they erupt into chaos and bickering, protesting that he is their king and must rule among his people, that he is too valuable a hostage should the dragon queen double cross him, that the north had fought too hard and come too far and grieved too many to lose their independence. He has his own reservations, fears about leaving Sansa behind and not being there for Rickon’s return. They are so close to having their family back together, and he is loath to give up that dream. Nonetheless, this must be done. He silences the room with a hand. 

_Better our independence than our lives, which the Others threaten every day they still walk this land. If she wishes to be our ally_ , he says, _we would make use of her men and her monsters._

He knows what happened to the last Starks who tangled with Targaryens, but they can’t all be so bad as Mad King Aerys. After all, there is a Targaryen out there to whom the old gods would bind Sansa for all eternity. The gods may not be kind or generous, but nor are they cruel. He will take the risk and do what he must for his people. 

_I’ve made my decision_ , he tells his advisors. He does not dare to look at Sansa, unsure he will like whatever he sees in her face, certain any doubt or scorn will weaken his resolve. But that does not stop her from coming to his chambers later that night. 


	12. Sansa VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only a king can kneel, and she is no king. The land is not hers to give. If Jon agreed to send Sansa as his envoy, their people’s freedom would be protected at least until Daenerys rallied her armies and marched them north.

She sets sail two days later. It was not easy to convince Jon to send her in his place, but she had found the right words. Tyrion had been her husband, once, and she swore he would not harm her. Ser Barristan Selmy, the Lord Commander of Daenerys’s queensguard, had been kind to her when they first met on the King’s Road, and he had served on King Robert’s small council beside their father. Her hand trembled as she lifted it to her heart, but she held her gaze strong, chin high. She had told him of Joffrey’s punishments by the light of a fire at the Wall, and she reminded him of them again in the privacy of his quarters. It is her chest that bears the name Targaryen, she insisted. She had bled for that as much as for the Starks. Daenerys was a dragon alone in the world, and Sansa would be the closest thing she had to family. 

Further, she had argued, the north’s independence would be best secured if she were the one to go south. Only a king can kneel, and she is no king. The land is not hers to give. If Jon agreed to send Sansa as his envoy, their people’s freedom would be protected at least until Daenerys rallied her armies and marched them north. If there were no negotiations to be had, if Sansa should be turned away or taken hostage, her safety would be no more in danger than it might be in Winterfell, waiting for the dragons to arrive. 

The war against the Others was only one more threat. The Wall still stood between the living and the dead for now, but it seemed the wights would only be contained by it for so much longer. If the free folk could climb it, it did not seem so impossible that those they fled might one day manage to do the same. Even if they were never able to scale the Wall itself, winter crept ever closer, and with it came the chance of frozen seas that would allow the Others to march south all the same. If Jon were not there to lead their armies into battle, the north would be lost, and the rest of the country would fall not long after. If he stayed, at least they had a chance. And should he fall, if she were still held on Dragonstone, an island in the south, it may be one of the safest places yet. But it was the last point that had swayed him beyond the rest. Should he be the one to leave — if he should leave her to hold Winterfell in his stead — 

_I could not bear to be here without you_ , she’d vowed, voice raw. 

Even as the words left her lips, she did not know if they were lies, only that Jon would believe them. When Joffrey commanded Ser Boros Blount to strip her before the court, she had given a similar excuse to Tyrion. Bad dreams, she told him when he thought to move her to the Tower of the Hand. She suspects Jon is no stranger to nightmares either — if not his own, then at least hers. Too often on their journey from Castle Black to the Shadow Tower, from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell, she had woken at the hour of the wolf to hear him pacing in the tent besides hers. She does not know what kept him up or if he simply needed less rest now than he did before, but she remembers how it would sound when he left his bed behind to stalk through the campsite with Ghost by his side or, worse, how it sounded when he stilled, leaving her to count her own unsteady breaths until the rhythmic fall of his footsteps began again. 

Now, his chambers are down the hall from hers, walls of stone muffling any sound that may pass between them. Still, on the nights that she wakes in the darkness, she closes her eyes and imagines she can still hear the sound of him walking in circles. One step, and then another, and then another, until either the light of the sun creeps through the windows or she slips back into sleep.

 _Ramsay is dead_ , she’d whispered to Jon, _but his ghost still haunts these halls. If you were to leave me here alone, I would not sleep until your safe return._

At that, he had sunk into a chair in his solar, dropping his head into his hands, and it had almost made her ashamed. Locked away in the Queen’s Ballroom in Maegor’s Holdfast, Cersei Lannister had taught her that tears were a woman’s weapon. She had not meant to pick up armor and armaments against Jon, but nor could she allow him to treat with the dragon queen. She refused to feel guilt at choosing to protect his life, his kingdom. Besides, it had worked. When he had eventually looked back up at her, misery writ across his face, he had agreed to her plan. 

Of course, he had some requirements of his own, including commanding her to take Brienne as well as Maege Mormont, and she had readily offered her consent. She knew he was thinking of Davos then, of the smuggler he would have ready to steal her away at any moment’s notice. But Lady Mormont and her ships would have to make do, and Sansa would be glad to have her. She would accept any conditions Jon offered so long as he allowed her to shield both him and the freedom of their people. 

Her only fear was leaving Littlefinger behind. If she had her way, she would bring him with her, if only so he would not sow the seeds of discord in her brother’s rule, arrange some accident for Jon so that Sansa must needs pick up his crown. If Rickon really should return, Jon’s claim might be in question once more, something Littlefinger would surely exploit. She does not know how wise it would be to bring him to Dragonstone, but she had been willing to take that risk, had argued his political ploys would be of value. In truth, she would keep him close, where she could cater to his whims and manage his machinations. 

Jon would not allow it. He sees the wisdom in letting Littlefinger live in order to keep the Knights of the Vale fighting alongside them, but that doesn’t mean he has forgiven the man for his role in Sansa’s marriage. Jon may be the king now, and it is his duty to forge alliances, but he was still the man at the wall who pledged to fight for her, to keep her safe. He would not leave her alone with Petyr Baelish, and he does not know half of what transpired between Alayne and her lord father. 

She had tried to insist that they would never be unattended, not with Brienne there, but on this he had not budged. And so, after extracting a promise from Petyr to offer Jon his wise counsel, she had left him behind. But flattery was not all she had given Littlefinger, and she knew there were more unspoken promises she would be expected to keep upon her return. She was no longer his daughter, after all, nor a woman wed. The Vale did not belong to the north, and they would not fight beside them forever without just cause. 

She banishes the thoughts from her mind as the salty sea air whips her hair around her face. When she had sailed through the waves of Blackwater Bay so many moons ago, she had never imagined she would return south once more. Now, as Lady Maege’s crew navigates through the Narrow Sea, their destination is nearer King’s Landing than she would like. It is a queer feeling, and yet it is not the only cause of her unease. 

Daenerys Targaryen awaits her arrival, and the idea of it leaves Sansa weak and weightless all at once. She had thought so often of fire and blood while living in the Lannisters’ clutches, but those had been a little girl’s dreams for vengeance. She had put them out of her mind when the old gods granted her Joffrey’s death, but now she cannot stop her hand from drifting to her heart. _Jaehaerys Targaryen’s name will give me strength_ , she thinks, and she can only pray she had the right of it when she told Jon that her mark makes her and Daenerys as good as kin. 

\--

When they finally come ashore, her first husband is waiting for them with Barristan Selmy on one side and a woman who names herself Missandei, one of the queen’s most trusted advisors, on the other. Sansa greets them all politely, allows Ser Barristan and one of the Dothraki to free her companions of their weapons, lets Missandei and Tyrion lead her party up to the castle — but their courtesies do not come without the reminder of just who she is dealing with. 

As the castle grows closer, one of the dragons circles overhead. Seeing them, her mind fills only with a tangle of buzzing, wordless nerves, preventing her from processing any of the conversations surrounding her. Whether the queen’s hand is making polite chatter or issuing veiled threats, she knows not — and when the beast screeches and swoops low, the wind from its wings knocking her to the ground, whatever tenuous grasp she had on her composure leaves her, too. Even as Brienne helps her back to her feet and squeezes her hands in comfort, Sansa can think only of the monster and the promise of two more just like it. 

What kind of a woman calls such creatures her children? She supposes she will find out soon enough, but she is still trembling once they reach the throne room. Twisting her hands in her skirts to steady them, she sinks into a deep curtsy before the dragon queen herself. It is only once the formalities are done, once Missandei has recited all of her monarch’s titles and Lady Mormont has given Sansa an introduction of her own, that Daenerys invites the Lady of Winterfell to step forward and explain why Jon has not come to bend the knee himself. Princess, some might call her, but Sansa steps forward all the same. She takes a slow, centering breath in, lets it out, and then begins. 

_Your Grace_ , she says carefully, _we do not wish to challenge your claim to the Iron Throne, your reign as the rightful queen. If you hope to make the seat yours, the north will not stand against you. If you would wish to ally with my brother, we would even stand beside you._ The practiced words come to her with ease now, and she raises her chin a fraction of an inch higher. _But the north was independent for thousands of years until Aegon and his dragons took all of the kingdoms by force. He won his throne by right of conquest, as did Robert Baratheon during the rebellion and as the first King in the North in 300 years aimed to do in the wake of our father’s death._

Daenerys’s eyes are narrowed, Tyrion’s wide, but Sansa only swallows away the last of her fear and continues. _Your hand, Lord Lannister, will tell you himself that Joffrey was no stag, and yet his family tried to rule the realm through him. After his death, they did the same with Tommen, and now Cersei has taken the crown for herself. The Lannisters have no claim,_ she says, _whether through birth or by conquest. They hold the realm only through trickery and deception, through cruelty and coin. But my brother Robb rose up and demanded northern independence once more, and my brother Jon won our home back by rights. We have retaken Winterfell, legally and lawfully._

 _The north will not kneel_ , Sansa vows. _My family has burned and bled for our land, as have I. But we will also not turn our back on the threat Cersei poses us all. My brother Jon and I would join you, Your Grace, and we would ask you to join us in our own war to come._

The silence in the throne room is louder than any declaration, interrupted only when the queen gives her leave through gritted teeth to explain just what war she means. _There is a danger larger than the Lannisters_ , Sansa warns. Her brother wished to travel south, but he cannot afford to leave their people without their king as a threat to all of their very lives looms ever closer. _But I am his heir_ , she reminds them, _and I speak with his words._ She tells them of the Others, of the army of the dead growing beyond the Wall, of the coming winter that allows them to creep ever further south. The queen does not believe her, that much is clear, but nor does she call Sansa a liar. 

Instead, Daenerys shares some of the trials she too has faced in order to return to her ancestral throne. She promises to be a good queen, just — and to fight any war her people might face as soon as she has claimed her rightful position as ruler of all seven kingdoms. But the north is one of those kingdoms. Sansa has come to Dragonstone as her guest, and the queen decrees that she will stay on the island as her guest so long as Jon remains in open rebellion. As is custom, her safety will be assured, all her needs met, and she and her companions will be allowed to come and go around the keep as they please, but they will not be granted passage back to their ships. 

Sansa imagines that Lady Mormont and Brienne are not pleased where they stand out of sight behind her, but both know better than to speak, instead waiting for their princess’s response. There is only one she can give. Her guards have no weapons, nothing with which to fight for their own lives, let alone hers. Sansa has never been a warrior, but she knows how to shield herself as a lady might. She will be as genteel as she has ever been in the face of a ruler holding her freedom in their hands.

 _I understand, Your Grace_ , she says evenly, curtsying once more, and she thinks of the mark on her chest, of the betrothal arranged to make amends for it and the scars and bruises she earned from the Kingsguard because of it. And then she thinks of Robb, of Jon, of the crowns of winter found deep in Winterfell’s crypts. When she looks back up at the dragon queen, she has nothing but an empty smile to offer, and her gaze catches on all the others in the room before it meets Ser Barristan Selmy’s, then finally lands on Tyrion. 

_My companions and I thank you for your hospitality_ , she tells the woman they call the Breaker of Shackles. _I have played the role of a traitor’s kin before, and I have no doubt your treatment will at least be kinder than Joffrey’s. Perhaps one day your hand will tell you the stories._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Hello! Thanks for reading this far. I've been thinking that maybe once this is wrapped up I would want to go back and write in missing/specific scenes in a more traditional style. If that's something you would like to see/if there is anyone in particular you would like to see, you can let me know in the comments below or over on my tumblr which is (also) [hilarychuff](https://hilarychuff.tumblr.com/)! You can also check out some of the [graphics I've made for this fic](https://hilarychuff.tumblr.com/tagged/i-carry-it-in-mine) if that is something of interest to you. TY!! Love you bye!!!


	13. Jon VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is grateful to have his baby brother returned to him, had practically flown out the keep and to the gates when Podrick brought word.

It’s not Rickon who returns to him first, it’s Bran — Bran, who rides through the gates of Winterfell in a cart pulled by his direwolf, Bran who calls himself the Three-Eyed Crow and brings with him a girl the crannogmen recognize as Meera Reed and all sorts of secrets about the past. Jon thought he would be happy to have another sibling back home, back by his side, and he is, and yet —

He is grateful to have his baby brother returned to him, had practically flown out the keep and to the gates when Podrick brought word. Without thinking, Jon had clambered into the cart too, swept the boy into his arms, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and Bran had smiled then, a small twitch of the lips, but it had only been a moment before he asked to visit the godswood, and from then — As warming as it had been to see his brother not only awake, but grown, practically a man — 

Everything he knows has been turned on its head. Bran brought with him answers to questions Jon had long stopped asking, and yet those answers raise even further questions. He doesn’t know who he is anymore. He does not even know his name. He has lost the ability to finish any thoughts. They fly by him, too quick to grasp and follow to their ends. 

What he understands is this: He is not a Stark king. He has no claim to the crown he wears. The title, the kingdom both belong to Bran, and Jon tries twice to give them to him during that first conversation in front of the heart tree, first to pass it to a trueborn male heir, second to thrust it at the only Stark still in Winterfell, but his brother refuses it just as his sister did — except neither is really his sibling at all, are they? _Cousins_ , he thinks, and feels something sour and hot twist in his gut. 

In the dark of the night, he thinks if Sansa were here, she could help him parse through it, could make sense of what he cannot. In the light of the day, he knows he would never be able to meet her gaze, not now that he knows that he is her — that she might be his — He doesn't know his name, but he can’t help but think of the one he bears on his chest, the one she bears on hers. He has never known what exactly is written there, had only believed her mark belonged to some far-away dragon, and to think that it might be his, whatever it is — 

Is it possible that he would be so lucky, that the gods would give them each other’s names? Is he deserving of such a thing, to be half of a matched set? And if he is, what has he done by sending her away, no matter how passionately she had begged to go? Her mark might still be that of another, someone lost or forgotten, someone born half a world away, someone who died long ago, but he can’t help but think — can’t help but hope — Was he not lost? Was he not forgotten? Was he not born half a world away, and did he not die?

He sits down a thousand times to pen her a letter. _Come home_ , is all he writes, over and over, and each time he feeds the parchment to the flames before the ink is even dry. It is both too much and not near enough. There are more words he would say, more he must tell her, but he understands not what they are. Even if he could find them, he cannot write anything where anyone else may read it. Tyrion Lannister had invited him south as a friend, but they do not know yet whether or not that offer had been made in earnest. He does not even know if Sansa has made it to her destination or if some storm has waylaid her, sent her seeking shelter on a rocky coast away from the waves. What if his raven should reach the island before her? What if Daenerys Targaryen should be the one to receive it?

Thinking of the dragon queen brings its own set of questions, sends his mind whirling ever faster. What will happen? What will happen when both she and Sansa find out? Will his sister-cousin spurn him? Will his enemy-ally-aunt burn him? When he first discovered his mark, he meant to keep it a secret, never speak of it aloud as long as he lived — will he do the same with this, as Eddard Stark did before him? Will he even be able? 

\--

Even Arya can’t set his world to rights. He finds her in the crypts one day, standing before their (her) father’s statue as if she’s always been there, waiting for him. They have guards posted at the gate, but refugees from Winter Town and the rest of the north have been seeking shelter and safety within the castle walls. It is not uncommon for the smallfolk to come to the keep in search of work, offering their services sewing and tanning leathers and salting meat in preparation for the long winter that has already begun. 

Ever since he sat with Bran beneath the weirwood branches, ever since Bran told him the truth of who he is, he has been spending ever more time with the Stark tombs. As the King in the North, one of the plots would be his one day. His bones are meant to spend an eternity beside Robb’s, beside his lord father’s. But Eddard Stark is not his father, and Robb is not his brother, and their bones never made it north. 

There is a statue for the man who raised him nonetheless, sitting proudly besides the ones Winterfell’s last lord had commissioned for his father, brother and sister. Lord Rickard Stark, Lord Brandon Stark, Lady Lyanna Stark, Lord Eddard Stark. In the crypts, they all sit together on their stone seats, and he finds himself often kneeling before them, as if in prayer before the old gods themselves. His grandfather, his uncle — they were burned, strangled because of his true father. His mother died after giving life to him. 

He wonders what Rickard and Brandon Stark would think of him if they knew, if they would call him dragonspawn like King Robert had declared his half-siblings. Would they see him as Lyanna’s child or simply Rhaegar’s son? Whatever the answer was, would they have been alone in it? How many would have condemned Jon to the same fate Rhaenys and Aegon faced as babes? How many would have eagerly presented his head to the stag that sat the throne in the hopes of winning some favor or coin purse? His mother loved him, Bran had said, and it is clear Lord Eddard Stark did, too, for all his faults and mistakes. Without the help of the man who bore the title before him, there is still much the Three-Eyed Crow does not yet see, but every prayer before a heart tree he hears as if it is whispered into his own ear. 

When Jon and Sansa first reclaimed Winterfell, Bran had watched them join hands and share their silence in the shadows of the ancient godswood. It had not been the first time he had played witness to Sansa through the weirwood’s weeping face, but she had stood beside a different man then as she exchanged a dove grey cloak for a shade of pink Jon hopes to never see again. His baby brother speaks little of those he lost, of what passed in the years since they’ve seen each other, but Jon understands they all have their terrors. The boy has faced the Others just as he has. When the wights had fallen upon the cave where Bran and his companions sought shelter, it had become clear it was safe to stay no longer. But seeing the pink gone, the grey back, Jon and Sansa together and each wearing wolves embroidered on their chests — that was when he had known he must finally return home. 

Throughout his life, Eddard Stark spent much and more time before the heart trees, too. At the weirdwood in Winterfell, the great oak in King’s Landing, at all the keeps he and the king’s party visited during their long journey south — he had often asked the gods for forgiveness, for guidance, for strength. Bran will not share his own story, but he speaks more freely of the others’, and Jon thinks he might understand now why his father had looked at him with such sad eyes all of those years ago when he asked after Sansa’s mark. He thinks he might understand now why his father had promised him that love could still be found. It had not been for his daughter’s sake he agonized, or at least not only hers. It had certainly not been for her sake that Lord Stark told Jon about Lady Catelyn’s mark, about how he and his wife had built a life together by choice and not chance in the wake of his brother Brandon’s death. 

What’s more, his lord father (his uncle, he reminds himself) had not wanted him to take the black, forsaking any future that involved a wife or children. Eddard Stark had tried to steer him from that path, but once Jon made his plans clear, the man had promised to one day give him answers about his mother, had wanted to one day share that secret with someone. Jon does not know what he would have thought if it had all been different, how he would’ve reacted if he’d discovered the truth while both Ned and Benjen Stark still lived, while Aemon Targaeryen was still within reach. 

Would he have been furious with his father for stealing away a life that he never could have had, even if he hadn’t said his words in the godswood beyond the Wall? As a black brother, as Lord Commander, would he have made the choices he did knowing he didn’t stand alone, that he had family by his side providing him counsel all along? Had his father known his true name? Would Ned have been able to tell him who he was, or had that secret died with Lyanna Stark and the few kingsguard knights left to guard her? 

Ever a bastard, even a Targaryen one, he was meant for no seat, no crown, but to think he might have been meant for a soulmate, one the gods would not just have him pledged to but have pledged to him — would he have understood and recognized that any future by Sansa’s side would put the both of them in danger as long as the Baratheons held the throne? Ned made the choices he did for love of his nephew, yes, but for love of his daughter, too. Jon had felt like an outsider all of his life, not quite a Stark, not quite at home. Privately, he knows he would have risked his own head for a chance at belonging to someone and somewhere — but would he have risked Sansa’s? Would he have been selfless enough to resist?

Perhaps he would have seen the danger as clearly as his father had. Perhaps he would have fled far across the Narrow Sea in search of a new life. He might have adopted a false name (another false name), found work as a sellsword or scribe. He might have made his way to his true father’s siblings, learned what it meant to be a Targaryen in more than just blood. Perhaps he would have lived in exile with his aunt, conquering cities, freeing slaves, helping her add to her long list of titles until she brought her dragons and her armies west to claim all of the Seven Kingdoms for herself. He might have left Westeros a bastard, a deserter, but returned a prince with no one to stand or speak against him. (Could he have claimed Sansa then if he had? Is that what he wants now?) 

He does not know, and Bran offers no help other than to keep his secrets. Jon does his duty as the King in the North, preparing his people for both winter and war, but in his free moments he finds himself ever drawn back to the crypts, searching for answers where there is only bone and steel and stone. 

And then one day as he descends into the deepest parts of the castle with Ghost by his side, he sees there is already someone standing before Lord Eddard Stark’s statue, staring up at the solemn face. Between the dim light of the room and the bright flames of his torch, he can only make out the silhouette of a stranger, his eyes still adjusting and the visitor facing away from him, but then she asks if she need call him King Jon Stark now, and the second he hears her voice — Blindly, without thinking, he drops the torch and rushes forward, and he sweeps her feet off the ground as he lifts her into the air. 

They spend the day in the shadow of her father’s likeness, Ghost’s head resting on her knee even long after the flames lighting the room sputter out and leave them in darkness. He tells her of all that has happened, all he has seen, all Bran has revealed, and she curses the idea that he is anyone other than her brother, no matter who his parents may be. When he offers her his crown, she even laughs, makes japes about her disinterest in being a lady, let alone a queen, and soon enough she has him laughing, too. Each one of them has been changed by the world, her not least of all, but sitting in the crypts, speaking with his baby sister, Jon feels almost a child again. 

But as soon as they leave, as soon as they walk back out into the snow and crisp air and the cold steals away the warmth they’ve built between them, all is different. He is a man grown and a king once more, wearing a stolen crown and playing at being a Stark. Alone in his chambers in the darkest hour of the night, he can’t help but wonder how one can be a sister and the other a cousin. He had never before thought to question what his mark meant for him. When it had come in, he had assumed the old gods would bind him in service to his family, and he had been more than willing to play the part of Sansa’s loyal knight. Now that he hopes that she might bear his mark as well — and, oh, it is bittersweet to think the name Sansa holds close to her heart is the same one he may never know for certain is his — he understands not what the gods planned for them. 

\--

_Your brother and sister are home_ , he writes. _Bran, Arya, and I await your safe return._ But none of them know when that will be. He’s received no ravens of his own, and the Three-Eyed Crow cannot catch a glimpse of her, though she had surely arrived on Dragonstone long ago. There had been a godswood on the island once, but Stannis Baratheon had sacrificed it to the Lord of Light when he declared himself king, much like the copse of weirwoods on Storm’s End he burned after Renly Baratheon fell. Jon had not expected to have eyes on Sansa during her journey south, but to know now that he might have, to know that the red witch robbed him of that, has him on the verge of throttling her on sight. 

All the same, he can still see her in his mind, kneeling as she often had before Winterfell’s weirwood. Bran has visited her now and again in King’s Landing, watching her as she was then as she pressed her hand to her heart beneath the branches of the godswood. She always kept her wishes to herself, but her palm held over where her mark surely lies had said enough despite her silence. If the name is his, that means Sansa had prayed to him once, and the thought makes him feel holier than any resurrection ever could. He wonders if she is reaching out for her missing Targaryen now, asking for one dragon’s guidance as she seeks to curry favor with another. 

The anger — the anguish — twists in his gut again, and every time Jon spots the Red Woman, his hands curl into fists of their own accord. He itches to banish her from the castle. This is just one more thing she failed to see in her flames. 

Despite that, Bran assures him the witch has a purpose to serve, certain her fires will be a tool they mean to grasp. He does not understand how, cannot quite chase the answers as he slips into the trees, but he’s sure, so she stays. So does Littlefinger, who also sets Jon’s burned hand to itching. The man lingers close, whispering what are surely meant to be words of wisdom, counseling his king in one way or another. Sansa trusted Baelish no more than Jon did, but she had vouched for the insight in his advice before she left, and yet if there is any truth to his usefulness it remains to be seen. Thankfully, Arya has no love for the lord either, and she is only too eager to comply with her king’s command to find out what she can about his many motivations. 

He hopes to marry Sansa, that much is clear no matter the fact that Jon has told the Northern lords more than once that she will never wed again for any reason other than love. But beyond that, of what drives Baelish’s immediate actions, Jon knows little. The man seems to have no interest in the gods, abstaining from time in the sept, before the red witch’s hearth, or beneath the weirwood. That leaves Bran with next to nothing to grasp at, and what he can’t find, Jon would have Arya uncover. Across the Narrow Sea, she’d become a master of faces — of becoming faceless — and the only one sly enough to out-sneak a counselor who advises Jon to be suspicious of all he would meet, to see danger and threats at every turn. Littlefinger would have him keep even the Mormonts at bay, no less the Manderlys, the Umbers, the Karstarks, the wildlings. He would have the King in the North be an army of one, battling enemies he calls allies. 

Jon sees the good sense in putting his faith in no one and nothing. Lord Eddard was betrayed by those he trusted to help him seek justice in King’s Landing. King Robb and his mother were murdered by his bannermen in the Twins. Bran and Rickon had been held hostage in their home by Theon Greyjoy, a man they considered near enough to family. Jon himself remembers all too well the cold kiss of knives wielded by his men, his brothers, when they slew him at the Wall. And yet he would strengthen the north, not divide it. He would have his men fight by his side, not against him. He would not cut down all those he’s asked to risk their own heads to save this land from the Others, to save the living from the dead. 

Littlefinger sold Sansa to the Boltons so that he could swoop in and play the hero, of that Jon is sure, but there is more to mistrust he knows. What he has not yet worked out is the goal of whatever larger scheme is now at play. Does Baelish offer sage advice that would advance Jon’s throne so he may win Sansa’s favor, her heart? Is he seeking to sabotage the Starks so that he has the chance to save them again, put them further in his debt with the false idea that only the hand of Jon’s sister might repay it? Or would he have all of them dead, would he orchestrate the downfall of the north so that Sansa will belong to him and him alone once more? 

Jon does his best to disregard everything Littlefinger tells him while still pretending to heed his counsel. Truly, it is Podrick Payne’s insight he treasures most. The man is but a squire, but he had served Tyrion Lannister before offering his sword to Brienne, to Sansa. Though he is shy, once the words are coaxed out of him they are soothing enough. He had seen how Tyrion stood up to Joffrey, seen how he tempered a cruel king’s rule. Even with his loyalty to his family, the Imp had done his best to bring justice to the capitol, had been the only one who managed to stay the Kingsguard’s hands when they raised them against Sansa. 

The words fit with what Jon remembers of Tyrion from so many years ago. He was not a nice man, but he was kind when he could be, the only one kind enough to try and warn Jon about what sort of life awaited a bastard boy at the Wall. It had been Tyrion he had turned to, Tyrion he had shared his joy with when he learned that Bran finally woke from his weeks-long slumber. The little man had promised to do right by his brother, promised to offer Bran the same sort of comfort he had once given Jon. Standing atop the Wall, they had clasped hands, and Jon had called Tyrion friend.

But he knows now the man who lived in the peace of King Robert’s rule was not the man who fought for Joffrey’s throne. Stannis had said little of the Imp, but what ill he had shared could be dismissed as the opposing force in a war. It was Sansa who had slept beside him, and she had spoken plainly of their time together. As the King’s hand, he had threatened Boros Blount with death for striking her, had sent Janos Slynt to the Wall where he met Jon’s justice. Becoming her lord husband had offered its own protection, too. But beyond that, he had done little and less, and certainly nothing near what Jon would’ve hoped. 

Tyrion could have left the capitol, could’ve taken his wife to the shelter and safety of Casterly Rock, not left her in the lion’s den among her tormentors. Whether or not he had been married against his will much as Sansa had, whether or not his role as the groom had saved Jon’s sister from some worse Lannister cousin matters not. Once he said the words, it had become Tyrion’s duty to keep her safe. 

But words are wind, and the Lannisters had disavowed the Imp before he ever turned his back on them. He hopes Tyrion has learned what comes of aligning oneself with a cruel leader. He hopes Tyrion will resume his responsibility to shield Sansa from harm if that is truly what she faces from the dragon queen. Podrick believes in Tyrion’s honor, and yet Jon finds he has no blind faith left to offer. The squire’s continued presence in the castle is the proof. If Jon had truly trusted him, trusted the Imp, he would have allowed Pod to travel south at Brienne’s side. Instead, he dared not risk the boy returning to his former master’s service. 

And yet, when the nights grow long and he’s in his cups, he finds himself sending for Pod and the meager comfort he offers all the same. _She is safe with him?_ he asks. _He would not harm her? He was kind to her, before? He was a good leader? He will protect her? She will be well? She is safe with him?_


	14. Sansa VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has taken most of her meals in the chambers the dragon queen gave her, eating only with Lady Mormont and Brienne, and days have passed with little word from their hosts. Perhaps Daenerys Targaryen had hoped she would change her mind if left waiting.

Her first husband is less pleased to see her than she might have hoped. She learns as much when he invites her to break her fast with him and bids her leave her guards behind as they stroll outside the castle walls. She has taken most of her meals in the chambers the dragon queen gave her, eating only with Lady Mormont and Brienne, and days have passed with little word from their hosts. Perhaps Daenerys Targaryen had hoped she would change her mind if left waiting, but it seems her hand has other plans.

There is something in the air between them, but she trusts he does not mean harm to her, or at least he will not dare to do so openly, and so she agrees. And yet she has heard bitterness in his voice often enough to recognize it now as they walk. It is there when he asks if she will regale him with the story of what has happened to her since they parted. 

When he saw her last, he reminds her, she had been sitting solemnly beside him at a wedding feast. He had thought to call her for witness at his trial, but she had fled. When the Tyrells meant to use that absence in order to blame her for the crime, he had protected her as he’d promised the day he wrapped a cloak around her shoulders, standing on the back of a fool. But it seemed to him, he’d mentioned dryly, that she’d had no similar regard for the husband she left behind. 

Perhaps that would have shamed her were she still a younger girl. Perhaps she would have told him how she argued his innocence to Lord Baelish until Petyr revealed just what had become of her husband’s first wife. Tyrion made a gift of her to his father’s guardsmen, he had said. Sansa had not known whether to believe it then, if Tyrion was the kind of person who might commit such cruelty against the woman whose name he bore on his chest. He had been one of her only defenders, once, but Joffrey had taken liberties with during their marriage on none too few an occasion, even publicly promising to come to her bed on the morning of his own wedding. She had been grateful then for Tyrion’s silence — but the moment had returned to her during the days spent at sea between the capitol and the Fingers. And if she had ever questioned what he was capable of, those doubts were washed away with the news that he had killed his own father. 

She will not let herself be shamed for any of her past actions now. She should play the penitent wife no matter how she feels, but instead she holds her chin high, unwavering, as she tells him she suspects he has already had the tale from the Queen of Thorns. Before her death, the late Lady Olenna Tyrell had herself been allied with the dragon queen after Cersei betrayed her sons’ bride. He concedes he has heard half of it, but he would hear the other half from her. He is particularly interested, as it happens, in just how she came to wed again. After all, he tells her, he does not remember leaving her a widow, despite his father’s best attempts. 

_It was your sister’s doing_ , she informs him with a small, frozen smile, as careful and cold as she ever was with him. _Littlefinger had a girl who could pass for Winterfell’s daughter, his own baseborn child. Cersei herself vouched for her good sister’s maidenhood to the High Sparrow, and then an annulment and a second marriage was a thing simply done. The Boltons wanted to secure the north. The crown wanted to quiet another rebellion. And Lord Petyr, as always, hoped to advance his own seat._

And Sansa Stark, he muses, what did she want? To go home, presumably, but of course such a thing had come at her expense, not her gain. It is possible Littlefinger had not heard — though he doubts it very much — but the Bolton bastard was known throughout the realm for his acts of cruelty, for his violence, for his neglect and torture in turns, he tells her. There have been enough stories of what Ramsay Snow did to his first wife for Tyrion to be surprised that the second stands before him as whole and hearty as she is. It was not a lesson he would have had her learn, but he presumes she knows now that there are worse monsters to be married to than a dwarf. 

She is not sure what he aims to learn from her, only that he intends to provoke a response. She will not give him one. She bows her head and supposes that is true, donning the mask of a sweet and mild-mannered girl he once thought he knew, and it infuriates him as it always did. Courtesy is a lady’s armor, she had told him on their wedding night, and he’d demanded then that she take it off. It seems he would have her do the same now, even without his bride’s cloak offering protection from the new ruler he asks her to serve. Or perhaps he would offer her that protection after all. 

During their marriage, she had never quite been able to please him. Any compliments or kind words she had offered only seemed to serve as a reminder that she did not want him, no matter how much he wanted her. In truth, there was much he desired of her she was not prepared to freely give. But she was a child then, and he had understood that enough to sleep beside her at night without ever reaching for her between the sheets, no matter his marital rights. She is not a child now. 

Reigniting their union, committing to it in truth would tie the two kingdoms together, he tells her. If her brother will not kneel, there are other ways to forge an alliance. She is unwed and, should the King in the North choose to make Winterfell his seat, she will one day be dispossessed of her keep. As it so happens, he may soon be the last Lannister left, Casterly Rock his for the taking. 

She thinks of Jon, of all the sorts of gruff dismissals and gallant declarations he would make in the wake of this proposal, how outraged he’d be by the suggestion he would ever claim Winterfell for himself, and nearly laughs. The Mormonts had already crowned him by the time they took back the castle, and yet he had never called it anything other than hers. She may never have love, may never meet her soulmate, but as long as they both live, she will always have her home — and him. 

She does not tell Tyrion any of this. Instead, she simply says, _It is a generous offer, my lord, but my hand has already been promised in service of another alliance._

\-- 

Her former husband’s next tactic, it seems, is to force her into a friendship with the dragon queen. He invites them all to sup together in his chambers, and Sansa takes small bites of each dish in determined, deferential silence. It is not the wisest strategy for making allies, but she finds herself falling back into old habits all too easily. Sitting in a southern castle at Tyrion’s side, it isn’t hard to close her eyes and imagine another queen’s golden curls in place of Daenerys’s silver blonde braids. And she has learned from her occasional walks with the queen’s hand that Daenerys needs the north as much as the north needs Daenerys. 

Before Sansa, Lady Mormont, and Brienne sailed south, the dragon queen lost the bulk of her ships when Yara Greyjoy’s fleet was attacked by her uncle Euron. Her alliance with the Sand Snakes of Dorne crumbled when Oberyn Martell’s daughters and paramour were killed and captured by Cersei, and any hope of joining forces with Prince Doran had burned with his son. Highgarden fell against the advances of the Lannister army and the last of the Tyrells with it. It was only once she had next to no Westerosi allies left that Daenerys had agreed to turn to the Starks, allowing Tyrion to reach out after he spoke highly of a bastard boy he once knew and a sweet girl who had been his wife. 

But the dragon queen is not willing to compromise, it seems, especially when her grasp on the kingdoms is already tenuous at best. To release one of them, Sansa imagines, is to loosen her grip on the rest, something she cannot afford to do with Cersei hiding safely behind the walls of King’s Landing. All the same, she needs allies, and it appears she shares the same idea as Tyrion’s initial scheme when she abruptly turns to them both to speak of their marriage. They had been wed once, she reminds Sansa — and her hand thought himself wed still when he first returned to Westeros. She wonders why that is no longer the case. 

_That was a long time ago, Your Grace_ , Sansa demurs. _Our marriage was annulled, and I have been wed again and widowed since._ She does not mention that third marriage surely yet to come, but Daenerys does, wondering just who Lady Stark’s brother might trust with her hand if not his old friend. As Sansa had said, the queen’s advisor told her the stories, all the ill treatment Lady Stark faced from the Lannisters and their allies. Tyrion has also told her that Sansa was marked for a dragon, and yet Daenerys insists she is spurning one now that it stands before her. 

There is no proper betrothal to speak of. No binding agreement that may sway any offense the queen sees fit to take. Sansa imagines Daenerys will not drop the subject so easily as her former husband did when his offer was refused, but she can see no path forward other than to answer, so she does. 

_That first day in the throne room, I told you of my brother’s need for allies. The north remembers, Your Grace, both the wrongs committed against it and the ancient threats we face once more, but the north lost many in my brother Robb’s war. The Lannisters conspired with the Boltons and the Freys to slay much of his army, and the forces we have left cannot stand against the Others alone._ Perhaps she should not be so blunt. Perhaps it is a poor strategy to speak so plainly of their weaknesses. She imagines her honesty will make little difference, however, if they are truly to duel with three dragons, the Dothraki, and the Unsullied, and so she does not hold her tongue. _The Vale does not belong to the north, Your Grace_ , she informs Daenerys. _But the Vale fought beside the north against the Boltons, and it will continue to do so against the dead if my hand is promised to its Lord Protector._

It is Tyrion who understands first, shooting to his feet to fix her with a disbelieving stare, his mouth hanging wide. Littlefinger, he challenges her to confirm, Petyr Baelish, the man who had a part in framing them both for Joffrey’s death, who gave her to the Boltons, the man who has surely been conspiring to manipulate her into a marriage since he first asked Cersei for Sansa’s hand and was denied the honor. Tyrion speaks of even more betrayals, schemes, a dagger with a dragonbone hilt sent to open her brother Bran’s throat while he still slept, a deal with the late Lord Slynt to steal the city watch away from her father’s service. 

Her mask slips. Her words fail. It is all too easy to picture it — not soldiers in gold cloaks who step forward with Ned Stark held up between them, but Petyr Baelish in his velvet brocade and mockingbird pin. She can see it, then, the man who made her call him father shoving her true father to the ground as Ilyn Payne raises Ice above his head. And she can hear it, too, the sound of a cage that clicked shut so long ago. 

The truth is she had hoped never to need to make good on the unspoken promise she gave Littlefinger. He is not a fighter, too clever to do much of his own dirty work, too cautious to get caught at the sharp end of a sword on a battlefield, and yet she had thought if only she might persuade him to wait until after the war against the Others, he might fall, might end up on the wrong side of one of his own schemes. If she could persuade him to be patient, she might find some other way to earn the Vale’s loyalty without its lord protector. Ser Lyn Corbray is his man, but Lord Yohn Royce has no love for him and plenty for Sansa’s late father. 

But she would have done it. If Petyr fought for them, if they both lived, if he threatened to take his forces back to the Vale before the war — she would have accepted her duty and married him. For the north. For Jon. For Rickon and the rest of their siblings, wherever they were. She would have taken Littlefinger’s hand in hers and professed her love to their king before the whole court, so that Jon would have no cause to refuse their request. But then she thought she had been the only one caught in the web he had spun. Now — this is more than she knew. This is more than she ever imagined. 

Daenerys’s voice cuts through the noise. Cold as she may be, anger simmers just below the surface, and she gives Sansa a taste of it when she again demands to know why the Starks would seek to align themselves with someone who should be their enemy instead of a man they once called husband and friend. Biting as ice or burning as wildfire, a queen’s gaze is no stranger to Sansa, but she is still unmade by Tyrion’s reveal, unable to find words, let alone string them together in any kind of cunning way. _Jon_ , is all she can gasp. _Jon needs his men._

She might have expected the dragon queen’s frustration at having her own offer of an alliance rejected, but the unrestrained fury takes her and Tyrion both by surprise when Daenerys declares that Sansa’s brother is selling her for an army. As it so happens, that is something the queen has experience with, and if Sansa would bend the knee, the Mother of Dragons could spare her that fate. If Sansa would bend the knee and deliver her the north, Jon would have no need to do so, because he would not live to wear a crown much longer. 

_No!_ The word bursts out of her before she can give it so much as a second of thought, before she can consider the consequences of refusing a queen so swiftly, but she can feel tears gathering in earnest now in a way they haven’t since she wept against Jon’s chest at the Wall. _No_ , she says again, pleading this time, _Jon did not know, he wouldn’t — It was my idea, my scheme — Jon would never force me to marry anyone against my will, never, please, Your Grace. He was the only one who — the only one who ever saved me without asking anything in return. He does not even know about my intentions, and he does not know of Lord Baelish’s betrayal of our father. I must write to him, warn him. I must go home. Please, Your Grace, please, I must go home._

Tyrion reaches her first, stroking one of her hands where he holds it in both of his, and she uses her other to reach desperately for the queen, palm up. In a moment that surprises them both, Daenerys takes it — and then abruptly she stands, pulling away, promising to consider Sansa’s request, and she’s gone.

\--

It had not been a ploy, and yet it seems she has unwittingly given them both exactly what they need from her. Tyrion, who had begrudged Sansa her private grief in King’s Landing, was taken with her tears, honored by the opportunity to give her comfort. Daenerys, whom she had previously only offered courtesies and compliance, had seemingly been moved by her willingness to beg for her brother’s life. The queen’s hand lets on as much when he comes to find her the following morning, bringing parchment and quill to the chambers where she breaks her fast with Maege and Brienne. 

It is not leave to return to their ships, but it is not nothing to be allowed to send a raven. The message will be reviewed, she is sure, both by Tyrion and Lord Varys, but she has no intention of trying to slip some puzzle past them. The only man who must not understand her true meaning is Littlefinger, who will surely have some way of reading all the scrolls that come through the castle even before they are delivered to Jon with their wax seals unbroken. She must be careful, then, to allude to some other villain Lord Baelish has reason to suspect. And she must trust that Jon is clever enough to see the truth. 

_He is no friend of ours_ , are the words she settles on. _He has made me another cage._

Littlefinger, if she is lucky, will think she means Tyrion. He will do his best to convince Jon and the rest of the lords of the same. But Jon should know that, as much as her first husband married her against her will, he was never anything more than an accomplice in the crime. Cersei had been her jailer in truth, Joffrey her tormentor. One is dead, the other a woman. Jon would have put a stop to it if she had told him of the unspoken promises she made Littlefinger, one vow to be made in exchange for another, and so she had kept the ploy to herself, but there is only one he she can mean. And there can only be one answer for all of the wrongs he has done her family. 

In Winterfell, with Jon’s chest warm at her back and his hands wet with Bolton blood on hers, she had felt powerful. He had let out a huff of air as they swung, and his breath had stirred the fine hairs at the back of her neck. Thinking of it even now, she feels herself shiver, and her jaw clenches as she imagines Petyr prone before them, hears the sigh of a sword. It will not be like that this time. No matter the accusations Tyrion has levied, without the dragon queen’s leave to travel north, there can be no trial. But this will be simpler, and it will allow all of the mockingbird’s blackmail to die with him. Jon will find a way. A hunting accident, like the one Littlefinger planned for Ramsay, perhaps. Or poison, the same sort Aunt Lysa had put in her husband’s wine so many years ago. _I have shed tears just as she did_ , Sansa thinks. _Let them rot him from the inside out._

But the manner of it makes no difference. At the Wall, after Jon revealed his mark to her, he had told her he would light his honor afire to keep her warm. It must be true. Their lord father may have been half-raised by Jon Arryn, but his children did not share the falcons’ family words. Winter will come for Petyr Baelish, and they will sink as low as they must. It will not be their father’s sword that strikes the final cut but a hidden dagger pressed to his back. It will be justice all the same. 

She does not write that. What she writes instead is, _We do not need the army. I will make us other allies. Please, Jon. Forgive me my foolishness. Free me._

Long after the raven has flown away, she stands on the battlements, facing north as if she will somehow catch a glimpse of softly falling snow if she waits patiently enough. Winterfell is there somewhere beyond her sight, strong and steady no matter all the blows it has been dealt. Even as all her eyes find is stone and sky and sea, she can see it — and then, unbidden, another image comes to her, one of Jon standing on the battlements much as she is, facing south with a hand on his heart. 

She’s still there when the dragon queen comes to find her with more gifts to give, including an already opened letter that arrived a few days past, and she nearly weeps when she reads the message written in Jon’s hand. Bran, Arya, home and safe and so far away. Even standing beside the other woman, Sansa feels more alone than she has in months, and she wonders at how weak she must have become to let all of her defenses break down in a matter of hours. The tear that slips down her cheek burns, her jaw working hard to hold back a sob, and suddenly she and Daenerys are touching for a second time when a small, soft hand finds Sansa’s on the lip of the rock wall. 

The only family Daenerys had ever known, she tells Sansa, was a brother named Viserys. Only a few years older, he had all but raised her after their mother died in the birthing bed, and it had been from him that she learned all there was to know about the Targaryens and how they were meant to return one day to the Iron Throne. Daenerys had loved her brother, she explains, but not, it seems, as Sansa loves hers. She had thought to marry Viserys once she was old enough, thought they would rule the Seven Kingdoms side by side, but he had been cruel and cold and careless, and he had given her to a man called Khal Drogo in exchange for the might of a khalasar. 

Sansa remembers then what Joffrey told her — a crown of liquid gold given to him by the Dothraki, bubbling and burning as it was poured over the Beggar King’s head — but the story the dragon queen shares is not quite what she always imagined. It was Daenerys’s doing, the woman claims. Not her hands that built the fire or melted the metal, but she watched and never spoke a word in his favor, nor did she shed any tears over losing the last relative she had left. No, she does not understand the feelings Sansa holds for her brother, she says, but she knows what it is to honor her family’s legacy, to dream of taking back a kingdom for love of her kin.

Jon must still kneel, the dragon queen declares. The north is hers, as are all the realms of Westeros. But in claiming the land, she will offer her aid. The north will be granted all the dragonglass it needs, Daenerys promises, as well as a contingent of men to mine it and the sails and oars for one of Lady Mormont’s ships so that her sailors might carry it to the Lord of Winterfell. There is still work to be done, alliances to be made, fealty to be given. Sansa will stay on Dragonstone, but Daenerys would give her the gift of all the glittering black rock buried beneath their feet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! This is the first time I am posting a chapter without having the next one already completed (even if it still needed to be rewritten/edited). I have already started it, and I know what I want to happen during it, but in case it is not done by next Monday I wanted to give everyone a heads' up that this might be where the weekly schedule stops. We still have a ways to go before we get to the end, but I am excited about what I have planned so I am nowhere near giving up on this one. Just might be slowing down from the rapid clip I set before. In case I don't see you next week, know that I am thinking about you — and you can always come visit me on Tumblr at [hilarychuff](https://hilarychuff.tumblr.com/) (same username) and maybe let [my graphics for this fic](https://hilarychuff.tumblr.com/tagged/i-carry-it-in-mine) make up for my absence. OK love you bye.


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